(The following article by Larry Bingham was posted on the Oregonian website on April 6.)
STEVENSON, Wash. — Two of four recent reports of problems along the stretch of track where an Amtrak train derailed Sunday never made it into the hands of the BNSF Railway Co. employee who examines problems, federal investigators said Tuesday.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators also disclosed that a September 2004 company report, which cited a problem on the banked curve where the Amtrak train derailed, did not reach the railroad’s track inspector for months.
Burlington spokesman Gus Melonas said the damaged stretch of track near Home Valley, Wash., has been repaired and trains have resumed normal operations. He referred all other questions to the national transportation agency investigators.
Lead investigator Cy Gura said his team spent part of Tuesday interviewing the Burlington track inspector, whose job it is to examine 60 miles of track on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge.
The track inspector, who has been in the position for 16 months, told investigators he did not receive the September 2004 report until three months after it noted an abnormality in the curve where the Amtrak train derailed, injuring 30 of its 105 passengers and nine crew members.
The track inspector, whom investigators declined to name, told the team he never received half of the reports made between March 23 and April 1, just days before the train derailed. The four reports, one by a federal track inspector, two by Amtrak crews and the fourth by a Burlington freight crew, all cited a “rough ride” in the area where the Amtrak train encountered worn concrete ties, derailed and ended up on its side.
Two of the reports zeroed in on a potential problem just a few hundred feet from where the derailment eventually occurred.
But the track inspector said his supervisor, the railroad company’s road master, never passed along two of the four reports. The track inspector checked into the two reports he knew of and found a problem with a bridge approach that he thought might be the cause. It was ruled out because it measured within acceptable standards.
The track inspector said he learned of all the reports only after the investigation began.
“One thing we’re looking at is this communication problem,” said investigator Russ Quimby of the National Transportation Safety Board.
A Burlington vice president and chief engineer, whom officials did not name, told Gura that the erosion in the track, deeper than an inch, was worse than any he had ever seen. The official told Gura that the company’s track inspector should have caught the problem.
“After interviewing this track inspector, I’m afraid this guy is getting a bad rap,” Quimby said. “Based on his experience and supervision, this kid was doing a phenomenal job.”
The investigation will look at training procedures for track inspectors, “the eyes of the railroad,” Gura said. The Burlington track inspector in question, who came up through the ranks from a railroad laborer, received only one week of formal training. All his other training has been on the job, reliant on his supervisor, the road master.
“We think the job is too important for that,” Quimby said.
This track inspector was not formally trained on concrete ties, Quimby said, and concrete ties were the problem. The ties are used prominently in the busy Northeast corridor between Washington, D.C., and Boston and have been for 20 years, Quimby said.
The track inspector also often worked hours of overtime to complete a day’s work, Quimby said. With 40 to 50 trains a day, a track inspector’s time to travel the track is limited, Gura said.
Federal regulations at the Federal Railroad Administration do not regulate how track inspectors are trained. Neither do regulations require that railroad companies report their follow-ups on reports of “rough rides,” said Warren Flatau a Federal Railroad Administration spokesman.
The investigation will move to Vancouver, Gura said, where investigators will pore over a year’s worth of the track inspector’s reports.