Washington, D.C. — The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to delay a year-end deadline for railroads to install automatic speed control equipment that would have averted a fatal Amtrak crash several months ago.
The Senate passed $350 billion legislation to renew federal highway and rail programs for six years, 65-34, but the measure gives railroads another three years to install positive train control. The absence of such equipment along the Northeast Corridor was blamed for the May 13 fatal derailment of a speeding Amtrak train in Philadelphia.
In Maryland, a century-old rail tunnel needed emergency repairs this winter because of soil erosion from leaks, causing widespread train delays.
In Connecticut, an aging swing bridge failed to close twice last summer, stopping train service and stranding passengers.
And last week, New Jersey Transit riders had a truly torturous experience. There were major delays on four days because of problems with overhead electrical wires and a power substation, leaving thousands of commuters stalled for hours. One frustrated rider, responding to yet another New Jersey Transit Twitter post announcing a problem, replied: “Just easier to alert us when there aren’t delays.”
President Barack Obama yesterday announced his intent to nominate Derek Kan and Anthony Coscia to serve on Amtrak‘s board.
Kan is director of strategy at Genapsys. Previously, he served as a management consultant at Bain & Co. and as an adviser at Elliott Management.
Kan also has served as a policy adviser to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell from Kentucky, the chief economist for the Senate Republican Policy Committee and presidential management fellow at the White House Office of Management and Budget.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation June 25, on a voice vote, approved the bipartisan “Railroad Reform, Enhancement, and Efficiency Act,” sponsored by Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), with seven amendments. The measure improves rail safety, reauthorizes Amtrak services and improves existing passenger rail infrastructure. It also leverages private sector investment, empowers states and cuts red tape to make critical infrastructure dollars go further.
“Senator Wicker and Sen. Booker worked hard to build a bipartisan consensus on the way forward for safer and more reliable passenger rail service following the tragic derailment of Amtrak 188,” said Commerce Committee chairman Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). “First and foremost, this legislation enhances safe travel by helping implement Positive Train Control technology, grade crossing improvements, requiring inward facing cameras to monitor crews on passenger trains and other safety measures. The committee’s vote puts passenger rail service on a more sustainable course by focusing resources on the most critical infrastructure improvements, streamlining burdensome processes to accelerate project delivery and demanding more accountability in Amtrak’s accounting structure and investment decisions.”
The legislation authorizes Amtrak for the next four years at an average $1.65 billion a year. Additionally, $570 million in grant funding is authorized every year, highlighted by a grant program that consolidates previous separate, siloed authorizations into a streamlined, competitive program. These competitive grants would go toward programs related to capital improvements, alleviating rail congestion, improving grade crossings, implementing Positive Train Control and other safety and infrastructure projects.
Highlights of S. 1626, as amended and approved by the committee:
Enhancing Safety
Positive Train Control – Advances deployment of Positive Train Control technology by authorizing grants and prioritizing loan applications to support its implementation.
Inward Facing Cameras – Building on voluntary efforts by Amtrak, the bill requires all passenger railroads to install inward-facing cameras to more effectively monitor train crews and to improve accident investigations.
Grade crossings – Requires grade crossing action plans to facilitate and improve state grade crossing safety efforts through engineering, education and enforcement.
Speed limit enforcement – Requires speed limit action plans to require all passenger railroads to evaluate high-risk track segments and address automatic train control modifications, crew communication and other speed enforcement issues. This measure is complemented by other requirements for signage and alerters.
Close call reporting – Encourages the use of confidential close call reporting system programs to identify hazards before they lead to accidents.
Focusing resources on safety – Consolidates existing grant programs to focus resources on the most critical safety and infrastructure improvements.
Indexing the liability cap to inflation – Adjusts passenger rail liability cap for inflation from its 1997 level, from $200 to $295 million, adjusts it every 10 years for inflation, and applies the revised cap to the Amtrak accident on May 12, 2015.
A Sustainable Course for Passenger Rail
Leveraging competition – Requires the Department of Transportation (DOT) to solicit and facilitate competition from carriers other than Amtrak to improve service and reduce subsidy costs.
TRAIN Act – Includes provisions offered Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) in the TRAIN Act (S. 769) to streamline the permitting process for rail improvements to cut red tape on critical infrastructure projects.
Reliable business metrics – Requires Amtrak to develop methodologies for determining what routes and services it should provide.
Fiscally sustainable routes – Establishes a working group for the restoration of passenger rail service east of New Orleans and creates a competitive grant program for fiscally-sustainable routes, potentially including the restoration of service abandoned after Hurricane Katrina.
Improving the Northeast Corridor
Separating Amtrak’s business accounts – Reforms Amtrak by requiring the separation of business line accounts, facilitating greater re-investment in Amtrak infrastructure, including the Northeast Corridor.
Greater role for states – Gives states greater say in infrastructure planning and improvements on the Northeast Corridor and with state-supported routes.
Private sector investment opportunities – Includes provisions from Sen. Booker’s Railroad Infrastructure Financing Improvement Act (S. 797) to make the Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing program faster and more flexible. With changes from Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill), the bill would better leverage private sector investment, including through public-private partnerships, while simultaneously protecting taxpayer interests. The reforms have the potential to accelerate major projects such as new Hudson River tunnels or improving rail service and stations in and around Chicago and other areas served by rail. In addition, S. 1626 solicits private sector proposals to enhance economic development of rail stations and increase commercial opportunities for railroad right-of-way.
Sharing the rails with freight
Crude-by-rail – Strengthens crude-by-rail safety standards by requiring thermal blankets under tank car jackets to reduce the risk of rupture in a collision or derailment, closing a potential loophole in DOT regulations. The reforms also improve emergency response by requiring real-time information on the locations and contents of trains carrying hazardous materials.
Study and Testing of ECP Brake Technology – While installation of new electronically-controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes moves forward, the bill requires real-world testing by the National Academies and a Government Accountability Office (GAO) study on pilot program testing. The provision requires DOT to consider the results of this testing and study.
Click here for text of the bill as introduced by Sens. Booker and Wicker.
Click below for amendments adopted by the committee:
Washington, DC — Edward Wytkind, president of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD), issues this statement on the consideration of the Amtrak Reauthorization bill:
“We applaud Senators Roger Wicker and Cory Booker for working in a bipartisan fashion to craft a sensible Amtrak Reauthorization bill that will be considered by the Commerce Committee today. The bill proposed by Wicker and Booker provides Amtrak with higher funding levels than the bill passed by the House, and includes reforms to the rail financing program that meet pressing needs to replace 100-year-old rail tunnels and other major infrastructure projects.
“While we strongly support these provisions, we remain concerned that the Wicker-Booker bill allows entities other than Amtrak to bid on service without full assurances that these rail operators will be covered by the same rail labor laws Amtrak follows today. If entities other than Amtrak are going to compete for business in the intercity passenger rail sector, then they should be required to comply with the same rail labor statutes and not be permitted to gain a competitive advantage at the expense of rail employees.
“While we are pleased that the bill contains provisions to bolster rail safety, we believe this legislation misses the chance to advance a number of common sense reforms that will make rail transportation safer. We also reject efforts to use this bill to mandate inward-facing cameras without basic privacy and anti-harassment protections for workers who spend up to 70 hours a week in locomotive cabs.
“We look forward to working with Senators Wicker and Booker to address these shortcomings and to craft a final bill that ensures our nation’s passenger rail system receives the funding and support needed to make it an engine for good jobs, mobility and strong economic growth.”
NJ Transit commuters could see benefits from a bill proposed by U.S. Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) to pump $6.6 billion over four years into Amtrak’s aging infrastructure, which could repair or replace some of the signals, overhead wire and track issues blamed for delays.
The bill would add money to Amtrak’s budget to fix some of the nagging NEC infrastructure problems, such as signal problems which caused 30 minute delays to Amtrak and NJ Transit trains as recently as Monday afternoon.
“This will help with the delays by improving signaling and the rail itself,” Booker said at a Monday press conference at Newark Penn Station with U.S. Senator Robert Menendez. “This will make somewhat of a difference and put resources in place for another (Hudson River) tunnel.”
When a passenger boards a Metro-North train, there is every expectation to arrive at the destination safely.
Yet Congress is considering easing a year-end deadline for railroads to install a technology — called Positive Train Control — that will prevent accidents like those due to speed on curves. Some of the nation’s railroads, including Metro-North, say they cannot meet the Dec. 31 deadline, which was mandated in 2008 after a California crash killed 25.
A Federal Railroad Administration safety officer testified before a Congress last week that 71 percent of rail commuter lines in the country will not make the deadline. Positive Train Control, which automatically slows down or stops a train, can prevent four types of accidents: a train-to-train collision on the same track, a switch improperly aligned or a bridge not in the right position, as well as excessive speed on a curve.
By John Previsich, SMART Transportation Division President
Previsich
We are all aware of the recent incident that occurred on Amtrak Train 188 in Philadelphia. Three of our conductor Brothers and Sisters from Local 1370 in New York City and the engineer operating the locomotive have had their lives forever changed by a tragedy that could have been prevented. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Akida Henry, Thomas O’Brien, Emilio Fonseca and everyone who lost their lives or were injured in the May 12 derailment.
The accident is currently under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. Members of the SMART Transportation Division’s National Safety Team were dispatched to the site of the catastrophic derailment to assist in the investigation. Significant progress has been made in understanding how and why the accident occurred and that investigation is continuing. It is our policy to not comment on the outcome of an ongoing investigation and we will leave that discussion for a later date.
We are, however, compelled to comment on a number of issues raised in the national discussion after the accident. The installation of Positive Train Control and its value in accident prevention has been placed front and center in the dialogue. While our Organization strongly supports the installation of PTC as a safety enhancement, we must comment that PTC is a safety overlay to the other measures that are necessary for a safe rail operation. PTC can be a valuable tool in helping to ensure safe operation of a train according to what is supposed to happen, but it is of little or no value in addressing issues that aren’t supposed to happen; i.e., pedestrian or vehicular intrusions into the right-of-way, broken or faulty rail or railhead, sudden incapacitation of the employee operating the train and other anomalies that will continue to occur with or without PTC. Some in the rail industry even claim that PTC will permit locomotives traveling at high speeds, routinely hauling hazardous materials, to be safely operated by a single crew member. This claim is fiction. One need only look at the Chatsworth incident, Metro North and the tragic 2013 train wreck in Lac-Mégantic, where a train leveled an entire town in Quebec, to see the risks associated with operating trains with single-person crews.
The ongoing dialogue includes discussion of inward-facing cameras in locomotive cabs. While inward-facing cameras may be of interest after an accident occurs, they will do nothing to prevent tragedies like the one we saw in Philadelphia. It is only natural to want to know every detail that occurs during an accident. However, locomotives already incorporate sophisticated event recorders that record the actions of train crews. The recorder measures speed, throttle, amperage, whistle and bell, application of the brakes, location, operation of head lights, ditch lights, etc. The data collected are routinely used by the NTSB and FRA to pinpoint the cause of accidents, and have already provided important information about this terrible incident. Inward-facing cameras add little additional information to that already available and in fact may be counter-productive due to the intrusive and unnecessary distraction caused by their use.
Many who promote the increased use of video surveillance in locomotives have good intentions, but rail transportation safety will continue to be impaired until Congress adopts a serious reform agenda that addresses crew staffing, work schedules and chronic fatigue. Focusing on implementation of technology that might make it easier to investigate accidents or monitor employee behavior merely diverts the conversation from meaningful safety reform. No one should believe that inward-facing cameras are the answer to the multiple safety challenges faced by the industry. There is no technology that can ever safely replace a second crewmember in the cab. The uncontrolled external environment in which trains operate along with regulatory and operational demands of a safe transportation service demand a crew of at least two fully trained and qualified employees in the control cab of every train. All such employees must be given a predictable work schedule with adequate time away from work to properly mitigate the chronic fatigue inherent in the industry.
Allowing discussion of inward-facing cameras and PTC to divert policy makers from addressing other much more meaningful rail safety reforms would be a mistake. Employees know the real culprits that undermine rail safety include chronic fatigue, chaotic and unpredictable work schedules, trains being operated with a single crewmember in the locomotive cab – a situation that if not present would have prevented the Philadelphia accident – and delays in implementing life-saving measures such as predictable work schedules. No amount of PTC or surveillance cameras can make up for the lack of well-rested, properly-staffed operating crews.
It is time for Congress to get serious and advance legislation that will have a meaningful impact on the true safety issues in our industry. It is only through such action that we will reduce the occurrence of preventable rail accidents and save lives.
WASHINGTON – As part of its ongoing investigation into the May 12, 2015, derailment of Amtrak Train 188 in Philadelphia, the NTSB today provides this update on the analysis of the engineer’s cell phone and related records.
The NTSB is conducting a detailed examination of the engineer’s cell phone calls, texts, data and cell phone tower transmission activity records from the phone carrier; and records from Amtrak’s on-board Wi-Fi system.
Analysis of the phone records does not indicate that any calls, texts, or data usage occurred during the time the engineer was operating the train. Amtrak’s records confirm that the engineer did not access the train’s Wi-Fi system while he was operating the locomotive.
To determine whether the phone was in “airplane mode” or was powered off, investigators in the NTSB laboratory in Washington have been examining the phone’s operating system, which contains more than 400,000 files of meta-data. Investigators are obtaining a phone identical to the engineer’s phone as an exemplar model and will be running tests to validate the data.
The engineer provided the NTSB with the passcode to the cell phone, which allowed investigators to access the data without having to go through the phone manufacturer.
Last year the NTSB lab processed about 80 personal electronic devices and more than 40 cell phones. The phone records analysis of the Amtrak 188 investigation has been more complicated than anticipated because the phone carrier has multiple systems that log different types of phone activity, some of which are based in different time zones. Investigators worked with the phone carrier to validate the timestamps in several sets of records with activity from multiple time zones to correlate them all to the time zone in which the accident occurred, Eastern Daylight Time.
NTSB’s Amtrak 188 accident webpage has links to all of the reports, videos, images, testimony and other related materials can be accessed: http://go.usa.gov/38MUB.
The Amtrak crash that killed eight people this month raised questions of the safety of one-engineer trains, thwarting the idea of reducing freight crews for now, Union Pacific Corp. Chief Executive Officer Lance Fritz said.
While cargo operators would save money with a single person in the cab instead of two people, that argument will be a tough sell to railroad workers and union leaders after the May 12 accident in Philadelphia, Fritz said. Amtrak trains in the Northeast Corridor have used solo engineers since 1983, according to a union statement.
“It makes the conversation more difficult today,” Fritz said in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York Wednesday. “That’s because it becomes a more emotional conversation as opposed to a conversation grounded in fact and the capability of technology.”
Washington, D.C. — The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to delay a year-end deadline for railroads to install automatic speed control equipment that would have averted a fatal Amtrak crash several months ago. 
In Maryland, a century-old rail tunnel needed emergency repairs this winter because of soil erosion from leaks, causing widespread train delays.
President Barack Obama yesterday announced his intent to nominate Derek Kan and Anthony Coscia to serve on 
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation June 25, on a voice vote, approved the bipartisan “Railroad Reform, Enhancement, and Efficiency Act,” sponsored by Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), with seven amendments. The measure improves rail safety, reauthorizes Amtrak services and improves existing passenger rail infrastructure. It also leverages private sector investment, empowers states and cuts red tape to make critical infrastructure dollars go further.
NJ Transit commuters could see benefits from a bill proposed by U.S. Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) to pump $6.6 billion over four years into Amtrak’s aging infrastructure, which could repair or replace some of the signals, overhead wire and track issues blamed for delays.
When a passenger boards a Metro-North train, there is every expectation to arrive at the destination safely.
WASHINGTON – As part of its ongoing investigation into the May 12, 2015, derailment of Amtrak Train 188 in Philadelphia, the NTSB today provides this update on the analysis of the engineer’s cell phone and related records.
The