(The Associated Press distributed the following article on August 5.)
WASHINGTON — Poor track maintenance was to blame for the fatal crash of the Amtrak Auto Train in Florida last year, federal investigators said today.
The National Transportation Safety Board unanimously approved a report saying the track’s owners, CSX Transportation, did not ensure that the track had been properly aligned and had adequate supports.
“This is something that should have been prevented through proper maintenance,” the chairwoman of the safety board, Ellen Engleman, said.
The Auto Train, one of Amtrak’s most popular services, travels between the Washington suburb of Lorton, Va., and Sanford, Fla., just outside Orlando. It was headed north when it derailed near Crescent City, Fla., shortly after 5 p.m. on April 18, 2002. Twenty-one of 40 cars left the track. Four people were killed, and 36 seriously injured.
After the wreck, the train’s engineer told investigators he had seen a misalignment of the track and was trying to brake when the force of the derailment threw him against the wall. CSX employees and Florida rail safety inspectors told the safety board that the section of track was troublesome because it was built on a steep embankment and the gravel foundation, or ballast, kept sliding away.
Inspections after the accident found sections near the derailment lacking the necessary ballast between ties and along the track’s shoulders, the safety board said. The ballast is needed to keep ties and rails from slipping out of place.
A CSX coal train had passed over the track just before the Auto Train took the curve and that crew told safety board investigators that they noticed no roughness or irregularity.
CSX employees also had inspected the section of track twice earlier on the day of the accident, and Florida rail safety inspectors had checked it a week and a half before and found nothing wrong.
In its recommendations, the safety board said CSX should develop a program to ensure compliance with the company’s maintenance standards. Gary Sease, a company spokesman, said CSX had already implemented the recommendations.
Last spring, the railroad said that since the accident it had improved training for employees who maintain and inspect tracks and was testing laser technology to help identify places that needed more ballast.
The safety board also asked Amtrak, the Federal Railroad Administration and the Transportation Security Administration to ensure that there were accurate lists of all passengers and crew on long-distance trains. Investigators say determining who was on board was made more difficult because there was no such list.
In a separate finding, on the crash of an Emery DC-8 cargo plane in February 2001, the safety board said today that a missing bolt caused part of an elevator assembly to separate, causing the crash. The board said maintenance workers had failed to properly attach and inspect the bolt.
The plane crashed shortly after takeoff from an airport near Sacramento, killing all three crew members on board. Board investigators said the tab used to control the right elevator was jammed, meaning the pilot could not control the plane. Elevators are used to raise and lower the plane’s nose.
In response to the crash, Boeing has changed the DC-8 maintenance manual to include checks of the control rod that connects the tab to the elevator and added a new section to its pilot training guide that deals with controlling the plane when the nose is stuck in the up position, a company spokeswoman said.