Northeast Regional 188 - Accident In Philadelphia

Chessie GM50 wrote:Quite frankly there will be a death toll when an object carrying a large amount of people crashes at high speed.

That's not necessarily an absolute. The Back Bay rear-end collision almost 25 years ago resulted in no fatalities and from what I understand Train 66 collided with that local from Stoughton @ 77mph on that tight curve just west of the station and had been traveling @ over 100mph and didn't even begin braking until after it had passed under Mass Ave(?). With some exceptions including this recent derailment you couldn't get more extreme a collision given the circumstances. The impact was so intense the lead IIRC F40 nearly pierced its way upward through Darthmouth St! Again no fatalities there.

And an accident that resulted in only 1 fatality where there probably could have been far more is the Virgin Trains crash @ Garyrigg, Scotland several years ago where a Pendolino derailed @ 90mph and tumbled down a hillside. Richard Branson attributed the relatively low casualty rate to the structural integrity of the train. I have little to no doubt that that's true.

Had the Acela crashed @ 100 where Train 188 derailed I wouldn't be surprised if the outcome was different for one simple reason: The thing is practically a tank. It's too heavy to be a "true high speed train", but like a Saab (remember them, auto geeks?) it has a good enough chance of holding up well enough in an accident.

If this crash leads to any improvements, changes, and so forth I wouldn't discount the FRA changing its mind on using foreign, lighter weight off-the-shelf high speed rail technology unless it can be proven to hold up just as well in a crash such as this. Much like how a lighter steel deck for a certain type of cable-stayed bridge (i.e. the Clark Bridge in Alton, Illinois) can still be structurally sound with less steel than that of another type of bridge.

gprimr1 wrote:We live in an extremely litigous society.

+1. We really do. The most pure and honest of intentions can spell big trouble. That Metro-North conductor who handed out a personal letter apologizing to his regular commuters for the constant delays was one of those situations where the intentions were good and his heart was in the right place, but it could have been a liability for MNR if one of their employees were to publicly make such a statement.

The phrase "You have the right to remain silent" has new meaning these days.

Personal opinion tangentially related to the Amtrak crash (RE: Trains, Planes, and Buses)

I know some people on railroad.net have a tendency to view trains as the "good guys" and planes and buses as the "bad guys" (as opposed to viewing all three modes as "good guys" and perhaps trains as the "best guys"); actually, that played a role why I haven't posted here for a few years prior to tonight. But Tuesday night's accident shows not only how important Amtrak is to the Northeast Corridor cities, but also how having multiple transportation options across multiple modes in a highly populated region like Northeast Corridor is so critical for the region. Though they couldn't handle the full brunt of the traffic diversion caused by the accident, the airline carriers (I think American, United, and Delta in particular) and bus carriers (Greyhound/Peter Pan, BoltBus, Megabus, and some smaller companies) as well as the metropolitan and regional rail providers (particularly NJ Transit, PATCO, and SEPTA) helped mitigate the negative transportation impact of this disaster. If those non-Amtrak carriers didn't exist, the transportation impacts of Tuesday's accident would have been significantly worse. All of the rail, airline, and bus carriers play an important role in the Northeast U.S. transportation system, and help mitigate the problems created by snowstorms, very hot or cold weather conditions, highway, railroad, or airport accidents, or other natural or human-induced disruptions on the region's transportation system.

As I often like to say, in the Northeast Corridor the pie (i.e. demand for transportation services) is so large that no one (i.e. train, airline, or bus carriers) goes hungry. And that fact becomes even more important when the pie is temporarily shrunk and there are still lots of people to feed; people may not get to eat quite as much but they still get fed. As a Northeast Corridor/Megalopolis resident who often travels on the southern half of the corridor, I'm thankful that so many transit options - and the redundancy and flexibility provided because of those options - exist, especially in emergency situations like the one in Philadelphia.

Am I correct to assume that a north/east bound train coming into that curve anywhere near 100 mph would had to have been exceeding track speed for quite a distance prior to the curve?

Since this morning,an Amtrak Catenary repair vehicle has been restringing the wire on tracks farest away
from the wreck site,so there's a chance they could be up sometime tomorrow.

The speed limit in the curve itself is 50mph, which would imply the speed limit prior to the curve is higher than 50mph.

How much higher, and what kind of graded deceleration there may or may not be, I don't know ...

anyone know what speeds are at what mile markers approaching that area?

It would be interesting to map out the speeds leading to the area ...

Backshophoss wrote:Since this morning,an Amtrak Catenary repair vehicle has been restringing the wire on tracks farest away
from the wreck site,so there's a chance they could be up sometime tomorrow.

They still have to replace the destroyed overhead structures ... at least two of those that we know of ...

Noel wrote above:
[[ I remember two different ones on the New Haven 1955 at Bridgeport and 1959 at Stamford and especially at Stamford it was a tough period. Catenay bridges were down in both cases. Bridgeport was somewhat similiar and speed was the issue but Stamford involved a stopped mail train and a through freight train and it took the New Haven over a month to get everything back. ]]

I knew you were old, Noel, but didn't realize you were THAT old!

I remember the Stamford wreck, too. The Connecticut Turnpike had only recently opened up, and my parents took a ride down through Stamford to see it. I was only 9, but I can remember seeing boxcars piled up in the air.

There's a link on Drudge to a Daily Mail (UK) article about the engineman on 188. I won't post the link, if you want to read it, go there to find it.

I'll guess he was fairly "new" -- not a name I recognize, and a face I don't ever recall seeing at Penn (I left in early '12).

It's common practice after a mishap for the employees involved to remain silent until the investigation under the advice of the local chairman (or higher). However, the fact that the individual asked for a lawyer is, well, unusual.

And all this talk about "don't speculate, wait for the NTSB", etc.
I would trust the NTSB about as far as I could throw them.
And this is from someone who ran engines for Amtrak for 31 of my 32+ years of service.

There's nothing overly complicated behind the scenes in this accident. With the information now publicly available, it's pretty obvious what happened.

Like the old timers would say when I was young:
"Kid, you got to run the train. You can't let the train run YOU...."

litz wrote:The speed limit in the curve itself is 50mph, which would imply the speed limit prior to the curve is higher than 50mph.

How much higher, and what kind of graded deceleration there may or may not be, I don't know ...

anyone know what speeds are at what mile markers approaching that area?

It would be interesting to map out the speeds leading to the area ...

It was mentioned earlier in the thread that the speed limit from 30th Street to the curve is 80mph on the inner tracks and 70 mph on the outer tracks. These speeds are also protected via cab signals, and are enforced with penalty braking applications reducing the speed if an engineer exceeds the limit. However, .3 miles west of the curve the cab signal protection stops; .3 miles is approximately equal to 13 seconds at track speed.

litz wrote:

Backshophoss wrote:Since this morning,an Amtrak Catenary repair vehicle has been restringing the wire on tracks farest away
from the wreck site,so there's a chance they could be up sometime tomorrow.

They still have to replace the destroyed overhead structures ... at least two of those that we know of ...

The catenary is under considerable tension, so temporary support structures are unlikely. The permanent structures require solid foundations, which don't happen overnight unless the originals can be recycled. The curve makes this more important.

jslader wrote:

litz wrote:The speed limit in the curve itself is 50mph, which would imply the speed limit prior to the curve is higher than 50mph.

How much higher, and what kind of graded deceleration there may or may not be, I don't know ...

anyone know what speeds are at what mile markers approaching that area?

It would be interesting to map out the speeds leading to the area ...

It was mentioned earlier in the thread that the speed limit from 30th Street to the curve is 80mph on the inner tracks and 70 mph on the outer tracks. These speeds are also protected via cab signals, and are enforced with penalty braking applications reducing the speed if an engineer exceeds the limit. However, .3 miles west of the curve the cab signal protection stops; .3 miles is approximately equal to 13 seconds at track speed.

Forgive this stupid question... what is the point of raising the track speed from 80 mph to 110 mph just 0.3 miles before a 50 mph curve?

Not quite as stupid question... how quickly can an NER train accelerate from 80 mph to about 107 mph?

MudLake wrote: Forgive this stupid question... what is the point of raising the track speed from 80 mph to 110 mph just 0.3 miles before a 50 mph curve?

Not quite as stupid question... how quickly can an NER train accelerate from 80 mph to about 107 mph?

Now that's a darned good question ... is it even possible to make that acceleration point, in that .3 miles?

litz wrote:

MudLake wrote: Forgive this stupid question... what is the point of raising the track speed from 80 mph to 110 mph just 0.3 miles before a 50 mph curve?

Not quite as stupid question... how quickly can an NER train accelerate from 80 mph to about 107 mph?

Now that's a darned good question ... is it even possible to make that acceleration point, in that .3 miles?

When the locomotive is pulling roughly 1/3 the weight of what it's designed to pull (i.e. 6-7 cars vs. 18 cars) in revenue service it's certainly a whole lot easier. Case in point Metrolink's new F125s aren't exactly being touted as "super accelerators" but when they're only going to be pulling 4-5 cars they can rev up to triple digit speeds faster than with a longer consist.

Perhaps the question is more "How did it?" than "Could it?" Because one way or another this train certainly did.

The MAS doesn't increase to 110 just before the curve; it's 80 Clearfield to Shore (2&3) then 50 at the curve, but that 0.3mi section preceding the curve is not cab signal enforced below 110.

But regardless, the train was way over-speed even before the curve.

Specs on the sprinter available online seem to indicate about 150 seconds to take an 8 car train from 0 to 125 ...

Based on that, my "back of the envelope" math says it's marginally possible to make that acceleration point in the time and distance available after coming out from the speed zone ... really depends on the actual real-life distance and time figures ...

He would have to have been accelerating TO speed, however, at the time he went into emergency prior to the derailment ... and not been AT speed (and maintaining that speed) ...

If he was AT that 100+ speed, and maintaining it ... if I understand things correctly, that train would have to have been blasting through either an 80mph zone ... in an area with actual speed controls in place. Which shouldn't be possible.

(all theory and speculation, of course)

It is believed that the engineer thought he was elsewhere along the route. How he became unaware of exactly where he was can only be guessed at this point. More details will obviously become available in time. This incident will be the poster child for more rapid deployment of positive train control. God bless all who have been effected by this terrible situation.