csua.org/u/avb -> www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cause27jan27,0,3041084.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Most E-Mailed TRAGEDY ON THE RAILS Train's Lineup May Have Added to Risk With the locomotive pushing from the rear, a passenger car took the bru nt of the collision.
Juan Manuel Alvarez (Carlos Chavez / LAT) Red Cross Donate blood: The Glendale-Crescenta Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross is holdin g an emergency blood drive.
By Dan Weikel and Scott Glover, Times Staff Writers The configuration of southbound Metrolink train 100, which had a locomoti ve pushing passenger cars from the rear rather pulling them from the fro nt, may have contributed to the severity of Wednesday's deadly derailmen t, according to transportation safety experts. Trains pushed along the tracks generally have lighter, less sturdy passen ger cars in front, which experts say have a greater chance of sustaining damage during a collision and are more likely to derail. The configurat ion also puts more people closer to the point of impact, placing a carfu l of passengers rather than an engine with the train's crew at the front .
advertisement The train that slammed into a Jeep Cherokee outside the Glendale station Wednesday was being pushed by a 140-ton locomotive and was led by a modi fied passenger car, known as a cab car, that weighed 56 tons. "There is no question you are safer when the engine is pulling the train, " said Loren Joplin, who worked as an accident and safety official for t he Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co. "For years, I h ave thought that using engines to push trains was going to end in a disa ster. Had there been a locomotive on the front end, this would not have happened in Glendale." Timothy L Smith, who chairs the California legislative board of the Brot herhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said union officials had b een concerned about cab car safety for years. Smith said the union had lodged formal written complaints about the issue with Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration, but nothing was do ne. Not everyone, however, agrees that the placement of the train's engine is a significant safety issue. Whether a locomotive is in the front or the rear of a train makes little difference in a crash, said George Elsmore, program manager at the Calif ornia Public Utilities Commission's rail safety division. Passenger cabs are reinforced to help withstand crashes, and both cabs an d locomotives are outfitted with bumper-like devices meant to push cars and debris from the path of a train, "like a snow plow," he said. Warren Flatau, a spokesman for Federal Railroad Administration, said "the evidence is not conclusive" on whether locomotives positioned in the re ar are less safe than ones pulling from the front. But, he said, "there are clearly situations where, with on-track obstructions, a heavier loco motive might" be safer. Although few studies have addressed the issue of train configuration, the Federal Railroad Administration conducted research in 1996 on what woul d happen if a train headed by a cab car were involved in a head-on colli sion with a train pulled by a locomotive. Researchers found that if the trains were going faster than 30 miles per hour, there would be substant ial damage to the cab car, with "severe injury or fatality of the vehicl e occupants." The researchers also concluded that other types of accidents involving ca b cars could have serious consequences. "The concern with this type of train configuration is that the occupants of the relatively exposed cab car are vulnerable to serious injury or fatality in the event of a collision with either a road vehicle at a gra de crossing or with another train," the Federal Railroad Administration said. The practice of pushing trains has been around since at least the 1950s a nd is viewed by many transportation experts as the best way to run a com muter rail system, from a logistical and practical standpoint. In such configurations, an engineer operates the train from controls in f ront of the cab car, where passengers also sit. The practice helps lines move trains more quickly and efficiently. It is also less expensive because train operators don't have to buy addit ional locomotives or build turnarounds to move engines from one end of t he train to the other. In the Metrolink system, only Union Station is equipped with a turnaround system that allows train officials to move a locomotive from back to fr ont, and the process is unwieldy and time-consuming, officials said. Metrolink officials were unable to provide data Wednesday comparing crash es of trains being pulled with ones that occurred when trains were being pushed, but another accident along the same stretch of rail in January 2000 provided a contrast with Wednesday's collision. In that case, a Metrolink train with the engine in front crashed into a t ractor-trailer stranded on the tracks. The train did not derail and the crew walked away with only minor injuries. Metrolink chief executive officer David Solow said Wednesday that the two accidents weren't necessarily comparable. In 2000, he said, the tractor -trailer was a long, horizontal mass across the track at the road inters ection, but the SUV involved Wednesday was much smaller and may have bee n lodged on the rails. "Most of the time, when we hit a car in a grade crossing, we win. The tra in has so much more weight, it either squashes the car or pushes it to t he side," Solow said. He said it was too soon to tell whether the train's configuration was a f actor in the severity of Wednesday's crash. Transportation consultant Tom Rubin, former chief financial officer of th e county's transit agency, said the configuration of the train was an im portant factor in the number of deaths and injuries in crashes like the one Wednesday. "If you are going to hit something, you want to hit it with a locomotive. It just makes sense," Rubin said, explaining that the engine, with its greater weight, was able to act almost as a bulldozer, clearing the trac k of objects in its path. He is among experts who said they would never sit in the lead car of a commuter train being pushed. "The chance of col lision is small, but if a collision does happen, where you are located i s exceedingly important," Rubin said. "If you can take a safety step and it does not cost anything, why not?" After the derailment, state and federal investigators flocked to the scen e to reconstruct what happened. Police said Juan Manuel Alvarez drove on to the tracks in an aborted suicide attempt. Investigators worked throug hout the day, combing the wreckage for clues. One of the factors investigators are expected to examine is the rear plac ement of the locomotive. Aside from the question of whether passenger cars should be placed at the front of trains, Wednesday's calamity also drew attention to a long-sta nding problem with rail travel: the inherent risk created by train track s intersecting with public roads. After years of accidents that occurred when impatient drivers tried to da sh over the rails or when people intent on suicide drove or walked onto the tracks deliberately, commuter rail operators have begun trying to bl ock off crossings or build overpasses or underpasses. During the last 10 years, railroads and transportation agencies nationwid e have eliminated 41,000 road-track intersections and added lights, gate s and signals to 4,000 others. As a result, accidents at crossings have been decreasing steadily. But it costs up to $40 million to build a bridge over a rail line so that cars can't drive on the tracks, and funds are scarce. This year, for ex ample, the federal government has allocated just $15 million to build th is type of crossing in California, said Richard Clark, head of the Rail Operations and Safety Branch of the California Public Utilities Commissi on, which regulates rail travel in the state. With thousands of miles of above-ground track, California has among the h ighest number of crossings in the nation. The state is fifth in the nation for accidents at railroad crossings, wit h 577 incidents and 161 deaths over the last five years, according to th e Federal Railway Administration. Accidents caused by trespassers those who cross the tracks somewhere o...
|
http://csua.com/feed/