EuroWire July 2015

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July 2015 26
Transportation
Yet again: A fatal train derailment, this time
in Philadelphia, spotlights the continuing
neglect of America’s infrastructure
For the second time in two years in the USA, on 12th May a
passenger train travelling well above its speed limit derailed –
this time leaving eight people dead and over 200 injured. And,
once more, it was reliably asserted that available technology
that might have prevented the accident was missing.
Jad Mouawad reported in the New York Times that the publicly
funded railroad service Amtrak has installed “positive train
control” on parts of its rail network in the Northeast Corridor.
But the technology, designed to automatically slow or stop
a train to prevent accidents, was not available on the critical
stretch of track in Philadelphia where the train derailed.
(“Technology That Could Have Prevented Amtrak Derailment
Was Absent,” 13th May)
As well as providing engineers and train dispatchers with
real-time information about speed and location, positive train
control programs the train to respond automatically to sensors
along the tracks.
The train from Washington to New York was travelling at 106
miles per hour as it entered a curve limited to 50mph. Robert
Sumwalt, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board,
said at a news conference the following day, “We feel that, had
such a system been installed in this section of track, this accident
would not have occurred.”
The safety board has repeatedly stressed the importance of
positive train control, which it believes might have prevented
the derailment of a Metro-North commuter train in the Bronx in
December 2013 that killed four people and injured dozens. An
investigation determined that the train was travelling at 82mph
before it entered a curve certi ed for 30mph.
“Without [positive train control], everybody on a train is one
human error away from an accident,” according to the board.
Partisan wrangling in Congress
The Times noted that, after a commuter train collided head-on
with a freight train in Chatsworth, California, in September
2008, killing 25 people and injuring more than 100, Congress
mandated that positive train control be installed throughout
the nation’s railroad system by the end of 2015. But, he wrote,
implementation has proved to be a challenge for regulators as
well as for railroads, and Congress is considering extending the
deadline to 2020 at the urging of the freight and passenger rail
systems.
The Association of American Railroads has argued that
meeting the 2015 deadline would be di cult for most
of its members because of the high cost of the control system
and the complexity involved in installing and testing it. But,
also on 13th May, an increase in Amtrak funding to support the
rail system was defeated by a 30-to-21 vote in the House of
Representatives.
In a follow-up account of the train derailment in Philadelphia,
Mr Mouawad and a colleague, Michael D Shear, wrote
scathingly: “The bodies had not yet been fully recovered…
before Capitol Hill erupted hours later into its usual partisan
clash over how much money to spend on the long-struggling
national rail service.” (“One Day After Wreck, Increased Funding
for Amtrak Fails in a House Panel”)
Edward G Rendell, a former governor of Pennsylvania, also
lashed out at lawmakers for refusing to increase Amtrak funding.
“It is absolutely stunning to me,” Mr Rendell said of the vote.
“It shows that ideology trumps reality, and that cowardice reigns
in Washington. The callousness and disregard was shockingly
contemporaneous.”
† The derailment in Philadelphia moved several writers to
consider the state of rail in America in light of some relevant
statistics. New Yorker columnist John Cassidy recalled that
a World Economic Forum survey from a few years back
ranked the United States 25th globally in overall quality of
infrastructure: behind, among others, Spain, Oman and
South Korea.
He noted further that, according to the Congressional Budget
O ce, in the 1950s and 1960s the USA spent close to ve per
cent of gross domestic product (GDP) on new transport and
water projects, and on maintaining existing systems.
European nations still spend about that much today, while China
and other rapidly developing Asian countries spend close to
twice as much.
In the US, wrote Mr Cassidy, “Spending on infrastructure is only
about half of what it used to be, relative to GDP.” (“After the
Amtrak Crash, It’s Time to Get Serious About Transportation
Infrastructure,” 13th May)
Transatlantic Cable
Image: www.bigstockphoto.com Photographer Zsolt Ercsel