(The following story by Robert J. Lopez appeared on the Los Angeles Times website on March 4, 2009.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Metrolink regulations for calling out the color of all track-side warning signals over the radio have the potential to create safety problems by cluttering radio traffic and blocking out more important transmissions, according to testimony today at a federal hearing.
Questions about the transit agency’s signal-calling rules were raised during the second day of sworn testimony at a National Transportation Safety Board hearing into the Sept. 12 Chatsworth rail disaster that killed 25 people and injured 135 others. The agency requires its engineers to call out not just red and yellow signals -– like other railroads -– but also green signals, according to testimony.
“There’s questionable value in that,” said Doug Taylor, an official with the Federal Railroad Administration. “It just becomes routine, and it just becomes white noise, and nobody is paying any attention to it, anyway.”
An official with the union representing Metrolink engineers also told the safety board panel that there was no need to call out green lights, also known as clear signals.
“Calling a clear signal does nothing more than clutter the airwaves” and “could walk on or step on a more important transmission,” said William Walpert, national secretary treasurer for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.
Emphasizing his point, Walpert noted that testimony at Tuesday’s hearing suggested key conversations between the Metrolink engineer and conductor in the Chatsworth accident could have been overridden by other more powerful radio transmissions. Metrolink’s dispatch system failed to capture communications between the engineer and conductor that could have confirmed whether they discussed the color of two crucial warning signals shortly before their train slammed into a Union Pacific freight carrier, according to testimony.