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A CSX freight train ran off the rails last month in rural Mount Carbon, W.Va. One after another, exploding rail cars sent hellish fireballs hundreds of feet into the clear winter sky. Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency, and the fires burned for several days.

The Feb. 16 accident was one of a series of recent fiery derailments highlighting the danger of using freight trains to ship crude oil from wellheads in North Dakota to refineries in congested regions along America’s coastlines. The most recent was last week, when a Burlington Northern Santa Fe oil train with roughly 100 cars derailed, causing at least two cars, each with about 30,000 gallons of crude oil, to explode, burn and leak near the Mississippi River, south of Galena, Ill.

Read the complete story at The New York Times.

NTSB_logoThe National Transportation Safety Board is seeking a qualified candidate to serve as a railroad accident investigator and would like to hear from interested SMART Transportation Division members with expertise in railroad operations, railroad accident investigations and railroad safety.

This position is located in the Railroad Division, Office of Railroad, Pipeline, and Hazardous Materials Investigations (RPH), National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), and the candidate will serve as an investigator-in-charge.

The individual will be responsible for organizing, managing and coordinating the investigation of major railroad transportation accidents and developing and presenting reports with safety recommendations for adoption by the board, Railroad Division Chief Georgetta Gregory reports.

Complete details regarding the position, including salary, benefits, duties and required qualifications can be found at www.usajobs.gov by entering job announcement number RPH-1328401-MIB in the Advanced Search box.

Applications will be accepted through March 10, 2015.

 

oil-train-railA week after a CSX train hauling crude oil derailed and exploded 30 miles southeast of Charleston, W. Va., on Feb. 16, its mangled, charred tank cars were still being hauled from the crash site. Of the 27 cars that derailed, 19 had been engulfed in flames.

The wreckage burned for almost three days. “It’s amazing no one was killed,” says John Whitt, whose home is one of a handful clustered near the crash site, along the banks of the Kanawha River. Some were within 30 yards of the site. One home was destroyed.

Raed the complete story at Bloomberg News.

The SMART Transportation Division’s National Safety Team has assigned one of its members to assist the National Transportation Safety Board in its investigation of the crash and derailment of a Metrolink commuter train in Ventura County in California Feb. 24.

Twenty-eight people were injured, four of them critically, when the five-car Metrolink commuter train traveling from Ventura County to Los Angeles struck a truck on the tracks and derailed.

Safety Team Investigator Louis Costa of Local 1241 at Richmond, Calif., will assist the NTSB in determining the facts of the accident.

Safety Team members are selected by the SMART Transportation Division president based upon their knowledge of operating rules and understanding of general railroad operations, train movements and dispatching. When a major rail accident occurs, the NST coordinator immediately assigns one or more NST members to assist in the investigation.

The NTSB has sent a go-team to investigate yesterday’s accident in Oxnard, Calif. Robert Accetta is leading the team as investigator-in-charge. NTSB Board Member Robert L. Sumwalt is accompanying the team and will serve as the principal spokesman during the on-scene phase of the investigation.

A Federal Railroad Administration spokesperson said, “Federal Railroad Administration investigators are en route to the scene, and they will conduct a thorough investigation to determine the factors that contributed to this accident. Safety must be every railroad’s absolute top priority. We will establish what lapses, if any, occurred and order any necessary corrective actions.”

NTSB_logoWASHINGTON – Transportation fatalities in the United States decreased by 3 percent in 2013 from 2012, according to preliminary figures released today by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Fatalities in all modes of transportation totaled 34,678 in 2013, compared with 35,796 in 2012. Deaths in marine, aviation, highway and pipeline transportation decreased, although there was a rise in rail deaths.

“While this decrease represents a good trend, much more work needs to done, because 35,000 deaths is very troubling,” said NTSB Acting Chairman Hart. “NTSB continues to address safety issues in all modes to reduce deaths and injuries on our roads, rails and waterways, as well as in our skies.”

The 2013 statistics show:

  • U.S. roadway deaths, which account for nearly 94 percent of all transportation deaths, decreased from 33,782 in 2012 to 32,719 in 2013. Fatalities on buses were up from 39 in 2012 to 48 in 2013.
  • Railroad deaths increased 6 percent from 840 to 891. The vast majority of these fatalities continue to be trespassers struck by trains.
  • Aviation deaths decreased from 451 to 443. Nearly 87 percent of aviation fatalities occurred in general aviation accidents (387), a decrease from the previous year (440). In 2013, air taxi fatalities increased significantly from nine in 2012 to 27.
  • Marine deaths also dropped in 2013, from 711 to 615. The vast majority of the fatalities, (560), occurred in recreational boating which also decreased.

Aviation statistics are tracked and compiled by the NTSB. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security provides marine statistics, and the U.S. Department of Transportation provides statistics for all other modes.?

2013 Piechart

Statistical Tables 

2012–2013 U.S. Transportation Fatalities
 
 
 
2012
2013 (footnote1)
Highway:
Passenger cars
 
12,361
11,977
 
Light trucks and vans
 
9,418
9,155
 
Pedestrians
 
4,818
4,735
 
Motorcycles
 
4,986
4,668
 
Pedalcycles (footnote 2)
 
734
743
 
Medium and heavy trucks
 
697
691
 
Buses
 
39
48
 
Other (footnote 3)
 
729
702
 
Total, Highway
 
33,782
32,719
 
 
 
 
 
Grade Crossings: (footnote 4)
 
 
(230)
(231)
 
 
 
 
 
Rail:
Intercity (footnote 5) —
 
 
 
 
   Trespassers and nontrespassers
   (footnote 6)
 
490
520
 
   Employees and contractors
 
19
20
 
   Passengers
 
5
6
 
Transit (footnote 7)—
 
 
 
 
Light, heavy, and commuter rail
 
326
345
 
Total, Rail
 
840
891
 
 
 
 
 
Marine:
Recreational boating
 
651
560
 
Cargo transport
 
9
13
 
Commercial fishing (footnote 8)
 
34
24
 
Commercial passengers
 
17
18
 
Total, Marine
 
711
615
 
 
 
 
 
Aviation:
General aviation
 
440
387
 
Airlines
 
0
9
 
Air taxi
 
9
27
 
Commuter
 
0
6
 
Foreign/unregistered (footnote 9)
 
2
14
 
Total, Aviation
 
451
443
 
 
 
 
 
Pipeline:
Gas
 
9
9
 
Liquids
 
3
1
 
Total, Pipeline
 
12
10
 
 
 
 
 
 
Total
 
35,796
34,678
 
1 Numbers for 2013 are preliminary estimates. Aviation data are from the NTSB; marine data are from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; all other data are from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).
2 Includes bicycles or other cycles.
3 Includes vehicle non-occupants other than pedestrians and occupant fatalities in other vehicle types, such as farm or construction equipment.
4 Grade crossing fatalities are not counted as a separate category for determining the grand total because they are included in the highway and rail categories, as appropriate.
5 Data reported to Federal Rail Administration (FRA).
6 Includes persons on railroad property without permission (trespassers) and with permission, such as repair personnel (nontrespassers). Does not include motor vehicle occupants killed at grade crossings.
7 Data reported to Federal Transit Administration (FTA). Fatalities for commuter rail operations may also be reported to the FRA and may be included in the intercity railroad fatalities.
8 Refers to operational fatalities.
9 Includes non-U.S. registered aircraft involved in accidents in the United States.

NTSB_logoThe National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday issued its annual tally of Most Wanted Transportation Safety Improvements, adding to the list for the first time the issue of the safety of railroad tank cars carrying crude oil and ethanol.

The safety board also urged the railroad industry to adopt a technology known as “Positive Train Control” (PTC) by the end of this year.

Read the complete story at Roll Call.

NTSB_logoWASHINGTON – The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday added railroad tank car improvements to its list of “Most Wanted” safety improvements, reflecting a heightened awareness about problems in transporting crude oil and ethanol by rail.

It was the first time the issue has appeared on the board’s annual list of safety priorities since it issued the first one in 1990. The board also renewed its call for railroads to install Positive Train Control, a collision-avoidance system, by the end of the year.

Read the complete story at McClatchy Washington Bureau.

NTSB_logoWASHINGTON– The National Transportation Safety Board issued a Safety Alert that focuses on the visibility of railroad signals.

On railroads, light-emitting diode (LED) railroad signals may mask nearby incandescent signals, preventing incandescent signals from being visible to train crews. If LED and incandescent signals are installed in close proximity to one another, the LED signal may appear brighter or closer, causing crews to confuse the sequence of the signals as they approach. This effect may be more pronounced the closer the train gets to the signals.

A Safety Alert is a brief information sheet that pinpoints a particular safety hazard and offers practical remedies to address the issue. This Alert highlights actions to avoid accidents by identifying locations where the close spacing of signals may cause a signal to either mask or visually dominate another signal, especially at locations where LED and incandescent light units have been installed in close proximity. These actions include evaluating the railroad computer aided dispatching software to prevent confusion when lining routes non-sequentially at multiple control points; conducting a hazard analysis that includes testing signal visibility with input from train crews; and through the use of configuration management.

The Safety Alert is available http://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-alerts/Documents/SA_038.pdf.

All 35 Safety Alerts the NTSB has issued are available at: http://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-alerts/Pages/default.aspx.

bus2Two young girls and one female adult aide were killed and 27 others were injured Tuesday after two Knox County school buses collided on Asheville Highway in East Knoxville.

The wreck, which flipped one bus onto its side, happened near Governor John Sevier Highway just before 3 p.m.

Read the complete story at Television Station WBIR.

NTSB_logoFederal regulators who concluded that an engineer’s sleep apnea caused a deadly train derailment in New York adopted several recommendations Wednesday for better screening of such disorders, including a call for improved physician training.

The National Transportation Safety Board, meeting in Washington, approved all the conclusions and recommendations in a staff report that examined five Metro-North Railroad accidents in New York and Connecticut in 2013 and 2014.

Read the complete story at Television Station WTNH.