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Even if the switch did not sync properly, after being restored to power mode and locked, the dispatchers screen still should have thrown red flags up that the switch was lined off the main into an occupied siding.
And as you mentioned previously, if they were running in an area where the signal system was suspended, movement should have been at restricted speed (unless maybe they were running under verbal block authority?).
You do know that signal maintainers can "jumper" around the track circuits? They do this sometimes when testing the system. I have known maintainers who have forgotten to take those "jumpers" off.
I was inspecting track one day on double main line track. I was on track #2,going through a "plant" which had a set of double crossovers. As I went by the switch on Track #1 on the west crossover,I saw that the switch was reversed,for a move from Track #1 to track #2 for a west bound train. The problem was the switch on Track#2 was still in the "normal" position. I stopped and Immediately called the dispatcher and told him what I was looking at. He basically told me I was crazy and his "board" showed that switch in the normal position,and he had an Eastbound coal train lined through on track #1 east bound. I told him if he did not stop that train it would go through a reversed switch and the next train or even this one would certainly derail. He stopped the train and called out a signal maintainer whom I waited for to see what the hell had made this happen.
When he arrived and I showed him what was going on.... he was stumped. After about an hour of him checking circuits and control boxes...he opened one which was full of snow because a mouse had chewed a hole in the rubber channel the wires passed through to get into the contact control box. He told me the only thing he could think of that could have made this happen was the snow had made the current short across the contacts in just the right way to make the switch reverse but it had NOT shown up on the control operators board.
The area where this took place looks like double main line with a siding.
One siding on each side of the main track. CSX needs a lot of track to get those autorack trains off the main line. The track on the left is where they store loaded auto racks as they put them on the transfer facilities tracks.
I then said switches can't fail and was rightly corrected on that. They can, but apparently did not in tis case.
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Sumwalt added there were no mechanical problems with the switch.
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Originally Posted by jeffdoorgunner
If the signal system was "down", trains are stopped or supposed to move at Restricted speed.........
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At the time of the crash, the rail lines in the region were getting upgrades, and all signals were operating under what's known as a track warrant. That meant CSX dispatchers were in charge of giving authorization to train engineers to proceed on different section of the tracks.
In the photo -- hoping it loads correctly -- this is the location of the accident. The CSX train was on the track in the right of this shot. The track n the far left is where they put the cars waiting to be placed at the facility in the background. Main line goes down the middle of the two tracks.
Time codes went down for me. They counted down from roughly 18 minutes to zero. Here's the gist of what Mr. Sumwalt said --
Sumwalt said the “expectation of the Amtrak crew was they were in the clear.”
Sumwalt said according to the event recorder, the train engineer sounded the horn seven seconds before the tape ended. The train was doing 56 miles per hour in an area where the speed limit was 59 miles per hour at this point. At five seconds prior to the end of the recording, he throttled down to idle and three seconds before, he put the train into emergency braking. From the switch to the siding, it was some 660 feet.
This is the only part of this post where I'll speculate. I believe he was blowing for the crossing at Dixiana Road under I-26. There were a few questions by reporters which suggests they believe he was blowing because he saw the train, but I doubt that since there was no way at that point the CSX train could get out of the way.
16:30 On impact, the Amtrak train was doing 50 miles per hour. It pushed the stopped CSX train back some fifteen feet.
NTSB interviewed the engineer and conductor from the CSX train today as well as the dispatcher and trainmaster for CSX in Cayce. They expect to interview the surviving members of the Amtrak crew tomorrow. Sumwalt did not go into what if anything was discovered in the interviews today.
15:00 Switch was tested today and “no exception to the operation of the switch” was found.
14:45 Signals were out of operation as PTC was being installed. Sumwalt added that when signals are down, trains operate under track warrants where dispatchers authorize trains to be in a certain territory.
13:15 The track passed inspection after the collision. The on scene investigation is expected to last into this weekend. Sumwalt is confident they can determine the cause of the collision.
He confirmed the switch in question is manually controlled at all times.
10:10 In response to a question about the “safety culture at Amtrak” with the latest three accidents, Sumwalt said in accident must be looked at “in isolation.” He added that it appears a dumptruck went through an active crossing inVirginia and again said Amtrak crew expected to be lined up for the main line.
“We want to find out why the switch was left in that position.
8:10 On a follow up question, he said they are not willing to say there are issues with Amtrak with this accident.
3:10 He's not ready to say it's CSX's fault, but repeated they wanted to know why the switch was lined for the siding.
“Just because we find someone may have made a mistake,” he said, “isn't the end of the investigation. As a matter of fact, it's the beginning of the investigation.”
2:00 He stated that the policy is to align the switch for the mainline. Then he said the CSX freight crew had released authority back to the dispatcher meaning they were finished on the main line. He then said this would include putting a derail in front of the stopped CSX train, but added this would not do much to prevent a collision given the speed of Amtrak.
Time codes went down for me. They counted down from roughly 18 minutes to zero. Here's the gist of what Mr. Sumwalt said --
Sumwalt said the “expectation of the Amtrak crew was they were in the clear.”
Sumwalt said according to the event recorder, the train engineer sounded the horn seven seconds before the tape ended. The train was doing 56 miles per hour in an area where the speed limit was 59 miles per hour at this point. At five seconds prior to the end of the recording, he throttled down to idle and three seconds before, he put the train into emergency braking. From the switch to the siding, it was some 660 feet.
This is the only part of this post where I'll speculate. I believe he was blowing for the crossing at Dixiana Road under I-26. There were a few questions by reporters which suggests they believe he was blowing because he saw the train, but I doubt that since there was no way at that point the CSX train could get out of the way.
16:30 On impact, the Amtrak train was doing 50 miles per hour. It pushed the stopped CSX train back some fifteen feet.
NTSB interviewed the engineer and conductor from the CSX train today as well as the dispatcher and trainmaster for CSX in Cayce. They expect to interview the surviving members of the Amtrak crew tomorrow. Sumwalt did not go into what if anything was discovered in the interviews today.
15:00 Switch was tested today and “no exception to the operation of the switch” was found.
14:45 Signals were out of operation as PTC was being installed. Sumwalt added that when signals are down, trains operate under track warrants where dispatchers authorize trains to be in a certain territory.
13:15 The track passed inspection after the collision. The on scene investigation is expected to last into this weekend. Sumwalt is confident they can determine the cause of the collision.
He confirmed the switch in question is manually controlled at all times.
10:10 In response to a question about the “safety culture at Amtrak” with the latest three accidents, Sumwalt said in accident must be looked at “in isolation.” He added that it appears a dumptruck went through an active crossing inVirginia and again said Amtrak crew expected to be lined up for the main line.
“We want to find out why the switch was left in that position.
8:10 On a follow up question, he said they are not willing to say there are issues with Amtrak with this accident.
3:10 He's not ready to say it's CSX's fault, but repeated they wanted to know why the switch was lined for the siding.
“Just because we find someone may have made a mistake,” he said, “isn't the end of the investigation. As a matter of fact, it's the beginning of the investigation.”
2:00 He stated that the policy is to align the switch for the mainline. Then he said the CSX freight crew had released authority back to the dispatcher meaning they were finished on the main line. He then said this would include putting a derail in front of the stopped CSX train, but added this would not do much to prevent a collision given the speed of Amtrak.
This would seem to confirm my suspicions expressed in an earlier post::: On the face of what has been reported so far; the CSX crew secured their train and left the switch locked in the "open" to siding position while at the same time notifying the yard dispatcher they had positioned the switch as "closed" to the siding and released the mainline back to his control to authorize mainline traffic.
It's not looking good for the aspect of human error at this point if indeed that switch was left locked in the "open" to siding position.
If it shakes out that a simple thing like having the dispatcher board switch position indicators being serviced and therefore relying upon train crew to correctly lock and report switches left in the "correct" position as contributing to or having caused the death of these two men............oh boy, that is going to create huge ripples in service and operation procedures.
If it shakes out that a simple thing like having the dispatcher board switch position indicators being serviced and therefore relying upon train crew to correctly lock and report switches left in the "correct" position as contributing to or having caused the death of these two men............oh boy, that is going to create huge ripples in service and operation procedures.
The GCOR/SCOR will have no less than fifteen new pages at time of next publishing. Job insurance premiums will also increase in every tier. Discipline quotas for management will increase. But hey, if that's what it takes.....
If it really boils down to something that simple, it does not look good at all. That would be a major communication breakdown. Mind blowing to me how horribly wrong something this simple can turn out just because the "system" was down at the time.
Why so many Amtrak crashes in the last month or two? Are they happening more, or just getting reported more? If the latter, how many of these fatal crashes has Amtrak had in the last ten-plus years???
Why was an Amtrak passenger train going 60mph on a siding?
The CSX freight train was apparently properly parked on the siding and shut down. No one was aboard the CSX train.
Amtrak, CSX train collision in South Carolina leaves 2 dead, over 100 injured, officials say
by Travis Fedschun, Bradford Betz
Fox News
Two Amtrak personnel were killed and over 100 others were injured when an Amtrak passenger train collided with a parked CSX freight train early Sunday just outside the capital of South Carolina, officials said.
The South Carolina Emergency Management Division said Amtrak 91 was traveling from New York to Miami when it collided with the CSX train in Cayce around 2:35 a.m. “It appears to me that the CSX train was the track it was supposed to be on,†South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said at a news conference. “It appears Amtrak was on the wrong track. That’s what it appears to me.â€
McMaster said the two people killed in the crash were Amtrak personnel and 116 people were taken to area hospitals. Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher identified the two victims of Amtrak crash as engineer Michael Kempf, 54, and conductor Michael Cella, 36. Fisher said that several people remain in critical condition. The governor added that no one was on the CSX train at the time of teh crash, and the Amtrak train was estimated to be going 59 mph.
"Two trains, that's as forceful as can get," he said, adding that "I would ask this is a Sunday, everyone go to church and say a prayer for these people involved."
Of the three incidents, there are two which were criminal acts towards Amtrak. Those are: the trespassing driver of the garbage truck on Jan 31, and CSX locking the switch on Feb 4.
The first one back in December, Amtrak owns, and those derailments are extremely rare.
Perhaps the time has come where we need to be punitive towards those that cause crimes against passenger trains. However, since most trespassing drivers/pedestrians in the path of a train, die, then we need to up the ante for Operation Lifesaver, and reduce at grade crossings.
Of the three incidents, there are two which were criminal acts towards Amtrak. Those are: the trespassing driver of the garbage truck on Jan 31, and CSX locking the switch on Feb 4.
The first one back in December, Amtrak owns, and those derailments are extremely rare.
Perhaps the time has come where we need to be punitive towards those that cause crimes against passenger trains. However, since most trespassing drivers/pedestrians in the path of a train, die, then we need to up the ante for Operation Lifesaver, and reduce at grade crossings.
Nah we just need to let AMTRAK go and let private concerns handle their own losses.
Basing judgment on the subscription rolls of major hobbyist magazines and memberships in historical societies, North America is home to, at most, about 200,000 hard-core railroad buffs; that's just about the size of the payrolls of the rail industry -- not all of whom are as absorbed as the "railfans". The two worlds intersect at a handful of sites like the one linked below, which has previously been cited in multiple threads on this subject:
As an aside, my own observations are based on a degree in Logistics which covered both Transport Economics and Carrier Management. And I grew up around the industry, and maintained a lifelong hobby interest; have done volunteer work for Operation Lifesaver. My exposure to actual rail operations are limited to about two years -- part of it an the New York Division of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. That's about as challenging as it gets, but I worked far longer in trucking and warehousing.
My own brief rail career started at the age of 45, which is rare, and courtesy of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and I was advised at the outset that very stiff standards would apply; suffice it to say that I came up just a little short after some specialized tests given on short notice. But looking back, I can understand that the right decision was made. If you're not a little bit obsessive/compulsive when you hire on, you will likely move in that direction.
So I had every reason to follow the case of Brandon Bostian -- the Amtrak engineer involved in the fatal accident in Philadelphia three years ago. I can speak from personal knowledge that his daily duties had intensified compared to when the Corridor operation began forty years ago -- and Metroliner engineers, unlike their counterparts in either freight or Amtrak long-distance service, don't have a second crew member in the cab. Compared to Rick Gates, the fool who tried to watch a football game while on duty and caused the more-serious wreck at Chase, MD, and tested positive for THC (cannabis residue), Mr. Bostian had far less culpability.
But to return to the incident currently under discussion:
The line involved sees one daily passenger train, the Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) system had been suspended for upgrading to the much-ballyhooed "Positive" Train Control -- which was an adaptation of a system originally intended mostly for freight, and in large part had been forced upon the railroads by politicians with an over-simplified view of the potential of technology.
E. Hunter Harrison, the recently-deceased former CEO of CSX, was notorious for pursuing a minimalist approach to operations; facilities were closed, fewer trains run on a different scheduling pattern, payrolls reduced, and younger employees strongly encouraged to transfer, which reduced the familiarity with local operating conditions. These pressures may yet prove to be a factor in last weekend's tragedy.
The salient points of which are: learn the facts, understand the pressures, and don't rush to judgement too quickly.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 02-06-2018 at 10:59 AM..
The technology was there 70 years ago with the Pennsylvania Railroad under steam locomotives! Cab signaling with ATC would prevent probably 90+% of the collisions, and 99% of the deaths PTC is designed to prevent at far less cost. Would it have necessarily prevented this specific collision and similar ones? No. But just like how airlines have gotten, the headline-making incidents would be so few and far between, that the entire culture and public response would be difference when one does happen.
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