Did anyone hear about train wreck?

[Guest_Gingee]

Did anyone hear about the train wreck down south? I caught part of it on the news today. I think they said something about six cars going off the track. I didn't hear if anyone was hurt or killed. Anyone hear anything?

 

[Steve4031]

It was the southbound Texas Eagle between Chicago and San Antonio. It derailed somewhere south of St. Louis. I do not know anything else.

 

[AlanB]

We posted details on this accident early this morning in this thread.

No one was seriously hurt and the derailment was caused by a rock slide.

 

[Midnight Rider]

Amtrak Train Derails South of Desoto

An Amtrak train traveling from Chicago to San Antonio derailed late Wednesday night south of Desoto, Missouri.

103 people were on board. 20 patients were taken to a nearby hospital, and none of their injuries are considered serioes.

The train, known as the "Texas Eagle," was on its way to San Antonio, and had stopped in St. Louis.

Federal officials are on the scene, about 3 miles south of DeSoto.

They say it appears the engine hit a pile of rocks, then flipped on its side. Early speculation is that the heavy rain Wednesday may have caused the rocks to slide. Officials say the engineer couldn't have seen the rocks in time to stop because he was coming around a curve.

None of those injured were children.

Picture of the wreck:

http://www.ksdk.com/news/photogallery.aspx?gid=81979

Crews clean up from train derailment

By Tim Rowden

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Thursday, Sep. 29 2005

Two people , including a passenger and crew member, remained hospitalized in satisfactory condition today following the overnight derailment of a passenger train near De Soto.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the

accident.

Rail officials said the tracks at the derailment site were expected to reopen

today.

The Texas Eagle, carrying 90 pasengers and 13 crew members, was southbound from Chicago to San Antonio when it derailed about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday southwest of De Soto.

The full story from the St. Lous Post Dispatch.

 

[Guest_Gingee]

Thanks for the information. I didn't see the thread before I posted the question.

 

[Amtrak Watcher]

I saw what was left of the north-bound Texas Eagle about 90 minutes late in Dallas last night (30 September - Friday). It was made of a variety single-level cars with one superliner sleeper on the back. I was too far away to get the deatails.

 

[railfangns]

An acella train struck a car in the northeast corridor between Boston and New York i believe on the same day the Texas Eagle derailed.Their are no grade crossings in the Northeast Corridor that i know of so it must have been an attempted suicide or the car left the highway at a high rate of speed and landed on the tracks.It messed up travel in the corridor most of the day.

 

[Guest_Amtrak OBS Employee]

Their are no grade crossings in the Northeast Corridor that i know of so it must have been an attempted suicide or the car left the highway at a high rate of speed and landed on the tracks.It messed up travel in the corridor most of the day.

It sure did mess up travel in the corridor. We had to take Acela passengers on the "Meteor" to WAS which made for a crowded train from the start between them and our regular passengers. And by the way, in that portion of the NEC there are about 10 grade crossings left. OBS...

 

[AlanB]

Their are no grade crossings in the Northeast Corridor that i know of so it must have been an attempted suicide or the car left the highway at a high rate of speed and landed on the tracks.

And by the way, in that portion of the NEC there are about 10 grade crossings left. OBS...

OBS is correct that there are indeed several grade crossing left in CT. The count is a bit lower than 10 though. I know of 3 right in the town of New London, there is Miner Lane where the accident occured just south or RR west of New London.

There is one right near the boarder with RI, and I believe that there is one more, although I'm not sure just where that one is. That's a total of 6 crossings that I know of.

Except for the New London crossings, all the other crossings are very small, little traveled roads. That includes Minor Lane, which actually dead ends less than a 1/4 of a mile after crossing the tracks on the east side.

All of the crossings actually have quad gates, closing off access from both sides of the road. Additionally there is equipment to detect a car that somehow gets stuck in the crossing, which will stop the train. So whatever happened in that car was last second, since their was no time for the normal detection equipment to warn the engineer, nor was there time for the engineer to see and react to the car. In part, because there is a bit of turn, right before that grade crossing.

According to one eyewitness, the gates were indeed down, and he watched the car roll right through one of the gates braking it off. Seconds later the train hit the car.

 

[PRR 60]

OBS is correct that there are indeed several grade crossing left in CT.  The count is a bit lower than 10 though.

There are a total of eleven grade crossings on the NEC between New Haven and the Rhode Island border. Those are:

Stonington, Connecticut

Palmer Street

Freeman's Crossing

Walker's Dock

Wamphassuc Crossing

MP 133.4 - Latimer Point Road

Broadway

Groton, Connecticut

School Street

New London, Connecticut

Governor Winthrop Boulevard

State Street

Bank Street Connector

Waterford, Connecticut

Miner's Lane <== This is where the tragic Acela accident occured.

 

[railfangns]

Amtrak needs to close all grade crossings in the NEC if they are going to run the high speed acella trains.I thought they had closed them all but i was wrong.

 

[gswager]

For the grade crossings, are there a speed restriction for high speed trains to pass through?

 

[AlanB]

Amtrak needs to close all grade crossings in the NEC if they are going to run the high speed acella trains.

Why?

Amtrak is in full compliance with Federal laws regarding grade crossings.

Whose going to fund that? We can't get enough monies to run the system as it should be. Now you want Amtrak to spend millions of dollars to build a bridge or a tunnel, for a street (Minor Lane) that might see 20 to 30 cars per day. They can't just close the crossing, since one side of the street would then have no outlet and people would be trapped in their homes.

Then there is New London, where there is no room to build bridges or tunnels. Plus at that point the trains are probably running at no more the 30 MPH. Is the expense worth it?

 

[AlanB]

For the grade crossings, are there a speed restriction for high speed trains to pass through?

Here are the FRA regulations on train speeds through crossings:

For 110 mph or less: Grade crossings are permitted. States and railroads cooperate to determine the needed warning devices, including passive crossbucks, flashing lights, two quadrant gates (close only 'entering' lanes of road), long gate arms, median barriers, and various combinations. Lights and/or gates are activated by circuits wired to the track (track circuits).
For 110-125 mph: FRA permits crossings only if an "impenetrable barrier" blocks highway traffic when train approaches. Above 125 mph, no crossings will be permitted.

Amtrak may have restrictions that are lower than FRA regs, depending on other track conditions and environmental factors.

 

[PRR 60]

This particular accident has really affected me. This was not just some jackass trying to beat a train. This poor woman, for reasons that we may never know, simply coasted out, hit the gates, the gates bounced up (as, I might add, they are “designed” to do), and she and those two poor kids ended up point-blank in front of an 624 ton Acela moving at 70mph. She and her two grandchildren paid with their lives (oh, I know, the younger one is not technically dead, but let be real). In an instant of unimaginable violence, a family was destroyed forever. How in hell does this happen in 2005 on the premier passenger railroad in this country? Is this the best we can do? I sure hope not.

So what’s the alternative? Do we simply settle on the “meets all requirements excuse” and let a couple of more families be decimated by an accident like this? Does another Amtrak engineer have to live for the rest of his or her life with the impact vision forever in front of their eyes? How long until Amtrak and the FRA wakes up to reality?

I know that everyone on this site cares deeply about what happened. I am not suggesting otherwise. But, it is sometimes necessary to accept the simple fact that Amtrak and the FRA failed. These eleven NEC crossings must have improved protection. It is absolutely feasible to provide a grade crossing that will prevent a car from inadvertently coasting in front of a train. But, it costs more money than just providing four conventional gates, some flashing lights, and motion detectors that were useless in this incident. And it takes more than simply meeting inadequate standards and then using that as the crutch after the unthinkable happens. If saving lives is not a financial priority for Amtrak or for the Connecticut DOT or for the FRA, then shame on them.

 

[Guest_Gingee]

You mentioned about the one not technically dead? This is the first that I have heard what happened for sure.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

Change the scenario just slightly. Say she was coming up on a stop sign, blacked out, continued into the intersection, and a semi hit her at 60 mph, and turned the car into aluminum foil. Who are we going to blame now? Or maybe she would black out and run through a crowd of people and kill half of them. Again, who do we blame for that? Yes, it's a tragedy. But it's not one caused by the railroad. There is only so much you can do. Why was she driving? Was this the first time she blacked out? If it's happened before, what was she doing behind the wheel? We have LOTS of cases like that, people who shouldn't have been driving, but are. Should we equip every highway vehicle with a receiver that instantly sets the parking brake and locks the transmission if it is within 200 feet of an activated RR crossing? That would do it. It would also cause a lot of rear-end crashes, but it would solve the crossing problem. Or instead of crossing gates, have a reinforced steel guardrail barrier come up out of the ground when a crossing is activated. Anybody hitting it at more than 10 or 15 mph would likely be injured, but they wouldn't be hit by the train.

 

[rile42]

It's a horrible accident for sure. But, is it Amtrak's fault that this lady could not hold the brake peddle to keep from drifting? Using PRR's logic, we should blame the state agency that renewed her license.

 

[PRR 60]

Change the scenario just slightly.  Say she was coming up on a stop sign, blacked out, continued into the intersection, and a semi hit her at 60 mph, and turned the car into aluminum foil.  Who are we going to blame now?   Or maybe she would black out and run through a crowd of people and kill half of them.  Again, who do we blame for that?  Yes, it's a tragedy.  But it's not one caused by the railroad. There is only so much you can do.  Why was she driving?  Was this the first time she blacked out?  If it's happened before, what was she doing behind the wheel?  We have LOTS of cases like that, people who shouldn't have been driving, but are.   Should we equip every highway vehicle with a receiver that instantly sets the parking brake and locks the transmission if it is within 200 feet of an activated RR crossing?  That would do it.  It would also cause a lot of rear-end crashes, but it would solve the crossing problem.  Or instead of crossing gates, have a reinforced steel guardrail barrier come up out of the ground when a crossing is activated.  Anybody hitting it at more than 10 or 15  mph would likely be  injured, but they wouldn't be hit by the train.

Three comments:

You say she should not have been driving. There is no evidence one way or another of that. No one knows what happened to her, to her car, or what was going on inside the car. Regardless, that should not have been a death sentence for her and the kids.

Second is the highway intersection analogy. Not valid. You can drift onto a highway and still have a pretty good chance. Maybe you get hit by a 30 ton semi. Maybe by a 2 ton car. And maybe by nothing. Highway intersections, dangerous as they are, are not remotely like pulling in front of a 624 ton train moving at 70mph.

Last, "there is just so much you can do". That's true. My contention is that Amtrak and the FRA did not do as much as they could do. They could and should have done better. Your last examples are the kind of thinking that should have taken place at the FRA and Amtrak. They should put a little imagination to work to come up with a solution.

 

[PRR 60]

You mentioned about the one not technically dead? This is the first that I have heard what happened for sure.

The woman and the older child died at the scene. Sadly, the child who survived the accident (4 years old) is on life support with massive brain damage.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

[quote name=PRR 60
You say she should not have been driving. There is no evidence one way or another of that. No one knows what happened to her' date=' to her car, or what was going on inside the car. Regardless, that should not have been a death sentence for her and the kids.

Second is the highway intersection analogy. Not valid. You can drift onto a highway and still have a pretty good chance. Maybe you get hit by a 30 ton semi. Maybe by a 2 ton car. And maybe by nothing. Highway intersections, dangerous as they are, are not remotely like pulling in front of a 624 ton train moving at 70mph.

Last, "there is just so much you can do". That's true. My contention is that Amtrak and the FRA did do as much as they could do. They could and should have done better. Your last examples are the kind of thinking that should have taken place at the FRA and Amtrak. They should put a little imagination to work to come up with a solution.

We don't know whether it was her first blackout. Statistically if we know it happened this time, it's unlikely that it had not happened before. Goodness knows we all see enough news reports of people (usually elderly but not always) who pass out, or just get befuddled and hit the wrong pedal, or whatever, with a result like mowing down people at a bus stop, or outdoor market, or whatever. And lots of folks that get their licenses revoked because of physical infirmities that make them too dangerous to continue driving continue to drive anyway. What do you do about them?

If you pull out into the path of a 30-ton semi doing 60+ mph, the results would be unlikely to differ much from being hit by the train. Once you're dead, the degree of "deadness" becomes irrelevant. And THAT kind of accident happens all too frequently. The fact that they have to recover the body parts with a pair of tweezers rather than a body bag isn't going to make much difference to the newly departed.

I was not being facetious about the idea of a steel reinforced guardrail coming up out of the ground. A guardrail like that, such as you find in the median of an interstate, or at the edge of a winding mountain road, is designed to be an impermeable barrier to traffic. You may be injured if you hit it, but the idea is that you are very likely to suffer much worse injury in the absence of the guardrail, and so it would be, here. I haven't seen any indication from the feds or railroads that they have ever thought of doing this. And it would make "gate running" physically impossible, period. And if people knew that the steel guardrail was there, they would stop trying to beat trains. Because as it is now, just like you said about the intersection, maybe they get hit, maybe they don't. As lots of engineers will tell you, many, perhaps most times, they don't. She did.

The real question, in this age of non-funding, of tax cuts out the wazoo, of Iraq, and so forth, is how you're going to get something like that funded. Consider what it would cost to "car-proof" all of the grade crossings in this country, especially given the cost of the sort of steel guardrail system I proposed. Funding for Amtrak wouldn't even be a single penny in a beggar's cup by comparison. It might even cost almost as much as Iraq. (hmmmmmm...) Maybe Amtrak funding will indeed stop and therefore there won't be any trains and without trains there won't be any more passenger train crossing deaths. That would certainly do it. Then the next one will be hit by a treight train.

Or perhaps put a proximity radar in all vehicles, with a "closing rate doppler" alarm, and ejection seats in the vehicle like on fighter planes. If it senses a sufficiently high-rate of closure and an imminent collision, it punches all the vehicle's occupants out of the vehicle so the train hits a car with no occupants. That would also work.

"&!#$ happens" is still operative, and there will continue to be senseless deaths from all sorts of causes. I don't believe it is possible to make living a "death-proof" activity, and given the constraints it would require to achieve, I'm not sure the quality of such a life would be worth having.

I assume you misquoted yourself when you said you believed FRA and Amtrak had done all they could do but could and should have done better.

Could they do better? Could they make "vehicle-proof" crossings? SURE. But again, the cost would be astronomical, and while we don't like to think that we put a price tag on life, effectively we have to, until we all have the equivalent of Bill Gates' net worth.

If you drive onto a crossing when the gates are down, or if you run a stop sign or blow past a red light, you are subject to a violent death. As a driver, you know that.
[/QUOTE]

 

[Guest_Amtrak OBS Employee]

[quote name=PRR 60
"&!#$ happens" is still operative' date=' and there will continue to be senseless deaths from all sorts of causes. I don't believe it is possible to make living a "death-proof" activity, and given the constraints it would require to achieve, I'm not sure the quality of such a life would be worth having.

I assume you misquoted yourself when you said you believed FRA and Amtrak had done all they could do but could and should have done better.

Could they do better? Could they make "vehicle-proof" crossings? SURE. But again, the cost would be astronomical, and while we don't like to think that we put a price tag on life, effectively we have to, until we all have the equivalent of Bill Gates' net worth.

If you drive onto a crossing when the gates are down, or if you run a stop sign or blow past a red light, you are subject to a violent death. As a driver, you know that.

Very well said! And as far as I am concerned, case closed! OBS...

[/QUOTE]

 

[PRR 60]

From Newsday (NY), 10/7/05:

4-year-old girl injured in Amtrak accident diesA 4-year-old girl died Friday from injuries she received when a train smashed into a car in Waterford last week, an accident that killed her grandmother and 8-year-old brother.  Courtney Metzermacher of Waterford was pronounced dead at Connecticut Children's Medical Center at 11:20 a.m., hospital spokesman Chris Boyle said.

The full story is here.