Modern safety technology could have prevented California rail crash
By John Lister
Safety experts say modern automatic safety devices could have prevented last week’s train crash which killed two dozen passengers. The National Transportation Security Board (NTSB) is repeating calls for the technology to be installed nationwide despite the potential cost running into billions.
The technology involved, ‘positive train control’, uses GPS satellites to track the location and speed of trains. If a train goes through a stop signal because of human error, the system remotely applies the brakes.
At the moment, the system is installed on just 4,000 of the 100,000+ miles of track nationwide. A spokesman for Metrolink, the company operating the train in last week’s crash, says positive train control would need to be applied nationwide (rather than just on passenger tracks) to keep tabs on freight trains.
However, railroad consultants say priority could go to track used by both freight and passenger trains, particularly in high-risk areas such as that where the crash took place.
The NTSB has been calling for some form of positive train control for more than 30 years, arguing that accidents prove it’s not safe to rely solely on human action to prevent crashes.
The technology is already in use on high-speed Amtrak trains running between Maryland and Boston, while the Federal Railroad Administration is running tests across 16 states.
FRA chief Joseph Boardman (pictured) says the system “would have stopped the train before there would have been a collision.” He also describes the cost of using the technology nationwide, an estimated $2.3 billion, as a challenge but not a crucial factor. And he says that while there would be technical and bureaucratic issues in applying the system to all of the different railroad companies, these issues could be solved within five years with the right attitude, at which point work could begin on installing the system.
That might be too slow for politicians: a bill currently before Congress would force railroads to introduce the system by 2014.
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