Wall Street Journal: Crash Highlights Risk on the Rails

Crash Highlights Risk on the Rails
Los Angeles Agency
Faces Big Liability
As Collision Kills 25

By PETER SANDERS, ALEX ROTH and ANDY PASZTOR
September 15, 2008; Page A4

Following the commuter-train crash that killed 25 people in Los Angeles, the local Metrolink rail agency faces massive political and legal liability, as well as the prospect of maintaining ridership after a spate of deadly accidents in recent years.

Friday's wreck highlights the absence of key safety equipment on the nation's overstretched rail network. A Metrolink train carrying 220 people through the Los Angeles neighborhood of Chatsworth barreled into an oncoming Union Pacific freight train when the commuter train's engineer apparently missed a red light.

Though much of the nation's passenger rail network shares tracks with freight, the vast majority of the trains operate without an early-warning safety system, which the National Transportation Safety Board maintains is crucial.

At an NTSB briefing late Sunday, board member Kitty Higgins described the circumstances of the accident as they are known so far. Data obtained by the board showed that the signal for the Metrolink train was set to red about 10 minutes before it arrived in Chatsworth, indicating that it should stop. But the passenger train "did not obey the signal," Ms. Higgins said, and instead continued through that stretch of tracks at approximately 42 miles an hour, actually bending the signal in the process.

Meanwhile, the Union Pacific train traveled through the signal heading south. "By the time the dispatcher realized something was wrong," Ms. Higgins said, he received a call from the conductor and emergency crews reporting the accident. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122143493606534127.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news

A dead-man's switch and other safety features would have been nice, but much of the reportage coming out about the wreck indicates human error. Had the commuter train's engineer (locomotive driver to you Thomas the Tank Engine fans) been paying attention to the signals and not texting on his PDA, he probably wouldn't have overshot where he should have stopped and the wreck would not have occurred.

The recently privatized train companies were unwilling to install advanced safety features at first, as they would cost money, but consumer pressure eventually forced their hand. In the words of Brad from The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show "human life's pretty cheap to that kind", but when their bottom line is threatened, they'll act.