Amtrak Grade Crossing Safety

Today the Times started one of its long, investigative series, this one on grade crossing accidents. The Times site is free but requires registration. Here's the link: NY Times series on Grade Crossing Accidents
Most of us railfans--myself included--believe that crossing accidents are mostly caused by idiotic drivers who ignore gates, lights, horns, etc and try to beat trains at crossings. Today's article, from the victims' perspective, focuses on a series of bad acts by the Union Pacific Railroad in particular to allow defective crossing equipment to remain unrepaired, to cover up its errors when an accident occurs, etc.
The article is interesting and unusual. The series will run for several days. I suggest members read it. Its relevance to Amtrak is that many grade crossing accidents involving Amtrak trains occur on UP rails. Also, the series talks about industry-wide safety issues.
The article has accompanying multimedia interviews with victims and pictures.

May I suggest that we thank Mr. Grossman for this timely "heads up", but otherwise move discussion over to the Union Pacific Forum.

Today's article is about CSX, not UP. Quite one-sided in favor of the victim and against the railroad.

New York Times CSX article

either way it belongs on CSX or here :
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=136 but most definetly not on Amtrak board.

Only if UP were a company that only ran trains. But being a vertically integrated company, UP owns and maintains track. Which Amtrak uses.

When UP is broken into an "operating" company and an "infrastructure" company, then we can move the thread to the the "UP Infrastructure" forum. But not until.

Once again, Mr. Grossman, thanks for the heads up. However, I do believe our discussion of this installment should be focused over at the CSX Forum.

Is this report one-sided? Probably. But I do believe, even if there is overkill here, the one-sideness is necessary for balance in the entire grade X-ing safety issue.

I think the uncleared brush issue should be on the table. As I noted over at the UP Forum and elsewhere, I was not even aware that uncleared brush could be a factor in grade X-ing matters until I joined the industry, made contacts in the Engineering Dept, and then learned of the brush issue.

Unfortunately, around here we have discussed all the "shortcuts" that CSX apparently takes out there. While our discussions here are rightly focused on their adverse effect on Amtrak operations, we should wonder, if they are skimping on track (Kensington and Crescent City are pretty foregone) isn't it logical that they are skimping on brush?

And, as we note folks, the consequences are a bit more severe to society if a railroad skimps on cutting brush about an X-ing, than when the little kid that cuts my grass goes off to Disneyland with his family for a week and it doesn't get done until he gets back.

We were talking about this already with regards to Amtrak. That was on topic. Now, we're looking at some extra information and stories about the same type of thing (whether or not the host railroad is ever at fault for a grade crossing accident or whether there can be a mixture of fault, etc.). The first article was UP, the second CSX. Now some of you would have us first discuss this on the UP board and then the CSX board? Maybe we can discuss each line of each article on a different board, based on the first word of the setence? This is a series and it has to do with something we were already talking about -- I don't see the need for the fragmentation. I don't read the UP or CSX boards and don't intend to start for one article.

I posted the note about the article on the Amtrak forum because grade crossing accidents affect Amtrak trains, and because the Times series promised to be of general interest to the rail industry. The series doesn't seem to belong to one railroad's forum, since the Times has targeted two in the first two days, and since it is also addressing general railroad regulatory issues. Amtrak, after all, is as close as we come to a national railroad, running trains on all the major Class I's.
But if you go to the UP forum, you can read Dick Davidson's slimy, disingenuous, mendacious reply to the Times series. While admitting the Times' facts are all correct, he tries to call them untrue by innuendo.
Is it possible that a corporate head, caught doing something bad, might, one of these days, actually APOLOGIZE?

This is an important subject, certainly one worthy of debate. But that debate does not belong on an Amtrak board.

JD

Quite one-sided in favor of the victim and against the railroad.

Sometimes that's a reflection of bias. But sometimes there is only one side. It's not the reporter's job to manufacture "balance."

...sometimes there is only one side. It's not the reporter's job to manufacture "balance."

I don't disagree, but it sounds to me like there is a legitimate "other side" in this case. For one thing, the lawsuit against CSX ended in a hung jury. For another, much is made of the fact that a previous fatal accident had occurred at the same crossing, presumably indicating the crossing was known to be dangerous. But in that earlier accident, the victims "had driven down Highway 127 and into the side of a CSX train running through heavy fog." To me, that sounds like the automobile driver's fault.

Don't get me wrong here. I certainly think CSX should be held accountable for following regulations. I also don't mean to sound callous towards the victim. I do, however, think drivers (and pedestrians) need to be cautious in crossing railroad tracks.

I remember as a kid occasionally riding with my Dad across a particular crossing on a small road out in the country, where trains go fast, a curve limits visibility, and there are no warning lights. Dad would come to a complete stop, turn off the radio, and roll down the windows so he could hear, to make sure no train was coming. I now do the same. Near this same crossing, at about age 10 or 12, I was walking with some friends along the tracks. Stupid, I know, but I was young and didn't realize the extent of the danger. Seemingly out of nowhere, the northbound Floridian (look - Amtrak content!) appeared, moving towards us at a pretty good clip. We jumped aside and ran down into the trackside bushes, what seemed like about 2 seconds before the train got there. It might have been 5 or 10, but it was not a lot.

If we had been hit, it would have been our own fault. Or maybe our parents' fault, for letting us roam around unsupervised without sufficient warning. But not L&N's or Amtrak's. If more people understood the dangers of railroad tracks, there would be fewer greiving parents like the Feasters.

C&O 15 wrote:

...sometimes there is only one side. It's not the reporter's job to manufacture "balance."

I don't disagree, but it sounds to me like there is a legitimate "other side" in this case. For one thing, the lawsuit against CSX ended in a hung jury. For another, much is made of the fact that a previous fatal accident had occurred at the same crossing, presumably indicating the crossing was known to be dangerous. But in that earlier accident, the victims "had driven down Highway 127 and into the side of a CSX train running through heavy fog." To me, that sounds like the automobile driver's fault.

Accident investigaters determine not a single cause (normally) but a series of causes. It's quite likely that the accident would not have occured had the driver been more attentive, but equally it could well have been prevented if the crossing had lights and gates. So one does not exclude the other.


On the issue of sides, Corporate America has no shortage of opportinity to publish their side, and they do so all the time, someone should cover the other side which doesn't happen enough.

C&O 15 wrote: Don't get me wrong here. I certainly think CSX should be held accountable for following regulations. I also don't mean to sound callous towards the victim. I do, however, think drivers (and pedestrians) need to be cautious in crossing railroad tracks.

of course, but this applies to many things, for example. many should practice more caution when driving in general, however 30,000 people die on the roads each year. People always have and always will exceed the boundaries of common sense weather that be by impaling themselves on the front of a train or by driving drunk. But if something has proven again and again to be a problem, perhaps something different should be done. (like putting gates on an unprotected crossing)

Yesterday's 100 mph collision inEngland makes me wonder about the safety of running at high speeds through grade crossings.

There was a similar accident in Sweden recently. In the United States, there aren't many places where trains go that fast through grade crossings. (There's one 90 mph crossing on the NEC in Connecticut, and a couple of 110 mph crossings in New York between Hudson and Albany.) However, Amtrak plans to start running trains at 110 mph between Chicago and Springfield on a line with many crossings. As the "City of New Orleans" disaster in 1999 proved, a collision at 79 mph can be devastating. How long will it take for a similar scenario to unfold in 110 mph territory? As much as I'm a proponent of raising speeds, the strategy that Illinois and other states are adopting of simply upgrading crossing signals gives me some concern. Without grade separation, how many people will die, and how many crossing accidents will occur before the image of high speed rail is forever tarnished in the minds of the general public?

The problem in Englande is not with grade crossings, but with their overly lightweight locomotive and rolling stock. Robust American style engines like the Genesis or F59 can pound right through all but the largest grade crossing obsticles. Yes if you hit a truck filled with 25 tonnes of steel rebar you'll probably get a derailment (unless you're in a GG-1 or an E-60), but your run of the miss passenger vehicle shouldn't present too much of a problem for a genesis unit even at 110. Anyway, you can always fit the engines with rams that deflect the vehicle or part it in half.

what are the MP's for those crossings, i'll check my Amtrak book for the speeds