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Speed blamed for fatal Amtrak crash near Tacoma killing at least 3 and injuring 100
来源：shippingazette.com 编辑：编辑部 发布：2017/12/21 14:24:59
AMTRAK's safety culture has again become the focus of attention following Monday's fatal accident near Tacoma, Washington, in which at least three people were killed and about 100 injured.
The revelation that the passenger train was speeding 50 miles per hour over the speed limit at the time of a fatal crash has again raised issues of the role of human error in rail accidents, and the need for technology that automatically slows trains that are going too fast.
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials said Monday's crash, the train - bound from Seattle to Portland, Oregon - was travelling at 80 miles per hour, on a curve with a limit of 30 miles per hour, when it jumped the tracks and careened into a busy highway and a stand of evergreens.
The accident mirrored Amtrak's worst disaster in recent years, in 2015, when a train derailed at more than 100 miles per hour in Philadelphia, on a curve posted at 50 miles per hour, killing eight people.
Train 501, carrying 77 passengers and seven crew members, derailed Monday morning, between Tacoma and Olympia, on the inaugural run of a new route for Amtrak's Cascades service, where the tracks curve onto an overpass crossing Interstate 5. It was not clear how familiar the engineer was with that stretch of track, or whether that played a role in the crash, The New York Times reported.
Just last month, the NTSB reported that Amtrak had a "weak safety culture". That conclusion stemmed from an investigation into a 2016 accident in Chester, Pennsylvania, that killed two track workers.
Federal law requires railroads, by the end of 2018, to have positive train control, which automatically slows trains if they are exceeding speed limits or approaching dangerous conditions. In its latest progress report to the railroad administration, Amtrak said it had installed positive train control on all 603 miles of track on the Northeast Corridor, from Washington to Boston.
Congress passed the law requiring positive train control in 2008, after the head-on collision of a commuter train and a freight train in Los Angeles killed 25 people. Railroads were supposed to have the system in place by 2015, but it became clear that many of them would not meet that deadline, the industry lobbied for more time, and Congress postponed the requirement by three years.
The track where the accident occurred was newly renovated, as a result of an Obama-era infrastructure investment programme.
The revelation that the passenger train was speeding 50 miles per hour over the speed limit at the time of a fatal crash has again raised issues of the role of human error in rail accidents, and the need for technology that automatically slows trains that are going too fast.
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials said Monday's crash, the train - bound from Seattle to Portland, Oregon - was travelling at 80 miles per hour, on a curve with a limit of 30 miles per hour, when it jumped the tracks and careened into a busy highway and a stand of evergreens.
The accident mirrored Amtrak's worst disaster in recent years, in 2015, when a train derailed at more than 100 miles per hour in Philadelphia, on a curve posted at 50 miles per hour, killing eight people.
Train 501, carrying 77 passengers and seven crew members, derailed Monday morning, between Tacoma and Olympia, on the inaugural run of a new route for Amtrak's Cascades service, where the tracks curve onto an overpass crossing Interstate 5. It was not clear how familiar the engineer was with that stretch of track, or whether that played a role in the crash, The New York Times reported.
Just last month, the NTSB reported that Amtrak had a "weak safety culture". That conclusion stemmed from an investigation into a 2016 accident in Chester, Pennsylvania, that killed two track workers.
Federal law requires railroads, by the end of 2018, to have positive train control, which automatically slows trains if they are exceeding speed limits or approaching dangerous conditions. In its latest progress report to the railroad administration, Amtrak said it had installed positive train control on all 603 miles of track on the Northeast Corridor, from Washington to Boston.
Congress passed the law requiring positive train control in 2008, after the head-on collision of a commuter train and a freight train in Los Angeles killed 25 people. Railroads were supposed to have the system in place by 2015, but it became clear that many of them would not meet that deadline, the industry lobbied for more time, and Congress postponed the requirement by three years.
The track where the accident occurred was newly renovated, as a result of an Obama-era infrastructure investment programme.