EuroWire July 2015

Transatlantic Cable

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 13 th 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 25 th 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,” 13 th May)

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 12 th 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,” 13 th 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

Image: www.bigstockphoto.com Photographer Zsolt Ercsel

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July 2015