Amtrak Derailment Philadelphia (5/12/2015)

[AmtrakBlue]

For those of you on Facebook, one guy has been posting actual transcripts from today's meeting on the Amtrak Northeast Corridor Railfans group page.

 

[Acela150]

I'll make my post brief. Cause I'm on my phone now. Can't get to my laptop. When I'm have access to it I'll give more on my opinion.

But they said the train wasn't hit by rocks. To which I reply. BS. I'll go into details later on my opinion.

 

[CHamilton]

This is a split decision, and one that shows the importance of the best possible people, training, and safety equipment.


"The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) voted 3-1 to determine the probable cause of the May 12, 2015 Amtrak 188 derailment in Philadelphia to be the locomotive engineer's loss of situational awareness....The NTSB Vice Chairman Bella Dinh-Zarr was the lone vote against the probable cause wording. She had introduced an amendment that would have named a lack of a PTC system as the probable cause instead of contributing to it. However, other board members argued that a train's locomotive engineer was solely responsible for the safe operation of a train and PTC was intended as a back up safety system should an engineer falter in that responsibility." http://arr.as/1WD2a7B

 

[jis]

The majority is actually pretty much in line with how these decisions at NTSB go. They will study to the nth degree about the human factors involved etc. But the proximate cause in cases like this is loss of situation awareness. This has been the case in many air investigations too, not just from NTSB in US bit also BEA in France (e.g. AF 447). so I am not the least bit surprised. There is an extremely lively ongoing discussion both in accident investigation and air safety communities about how to characterize the failure of a pilot to aviate (due to loss of situational awareness) in the face of automation failure, and human factors and ergonomics issues at the point of intersection between the pilot's cognitive processes and the cues and controls provided by the automation human interface. Similar level of discussion ought to happen in the railroad safety community to, but has been more muted since railroad risks are an order of magnitude less than in air.

Arguing about whether it is a split decision or not is a pretty futile posturing exercise anyway, just IMHO.

The obvious mitigation is installation of PTC, which has happened. The reason it did not happen earlier is because of Congress. So to some extent the secondary cause is Congress, in a manner of speaking.

However, there still are legions of railroad "experts" in the US who firmly believe that the cost of PTC is not justified. So go figure.

 

[west point]

1. Mention of airline loss of situational problem has been addressed by some airlines. hard and fast rule -- if an emergency or abnormal occurrence one pilot deals with emergency and other flies aircraft. Person dealing with problem just tells other what (s)he is doing. When flying a distraction can occur such as close traffic, weather, etc. So someone always flying aircraft.

2. All reports so far says NTSB is just blaming no PTC. What about Amtrak not providing an limiting signal leading to CP curve ? Cab signal would have dropped 188's speed as well.

 

[jis]

1. Mention of airline loss of situational problem has been addressed by some airlines. hard and fast rule -- if an emergency or abnormal occurrence one pilot deals with emergency and other flies aircraft. Person dealing with problem just tells other what (s)he is doing. When flying a distraction can occur such as close traffic, weather, etc. So someone always flying aircraft.

There were two pilots trying to figure out what was going on with AF 447, and still it was placed into a stall by wrong inputs from the PIC causing it to crash. So I have no idea what you are trying to say. Who said that there is not someone flying the aircraft. The problem is there are many cases where a perfectly good aircraft is flown into terrain even in a fully controlled flight, e.g. the AA crash in South America into a mountain side some time back. At least AF 447 was not a controlled flight into ocean. It was a rather uncontrolled one by the time it crashed.

2. All reports so far says NTSB is just blaming no PTC. What about Amtrak not providing an limiting signal leading to CP curve ? Cab signal would have dropped 188's speed as well.

Actually what NTSB is also alluding to using the PTC terminology is that there was no ATC in place to force entry into the curve at a safe speed either, something that was present at other similar locations.CAB signal would drop speed only if the previous signal before the curve showed a less than Clear mode, which it did not. That was part of the beef, and that was the immediate fix following the derailment, pending installation and commissioning of ACSES transponder based speed control into the curve.

 

[Acela150]

I'll make my post brief. Cause I'm on my phone now. Can't get to my laptop. When I'm have access to it I'll give more on my opinion.

But they said the train wasn't hit by rocks. To which I reply. BS. I'll go into details later on my opinion.

Ok, I'm on my laptop and can further explain my opinion..

I have been by that area plenty of times in my short career.. We constantly take Empty Slab trains over the Del Air to Camden and turn back on trains that are Loaded.. In the time that it takes us to get relieved from the Empty make our food stop, get paperwork, and a bunch of other stuff it's about anywhere from 1 to 2 hours. Depends if South Jersey has something coming in to Camden. Once I was on such a train and we got rocked around 2pm. By the time we came back it was 330pm in that hour and a half we got rocked again... It's entirely possible that it was a different group of (insert choice words here) at the same spot. But what I'm trying to say is that it's entirely possible that in that short period of time that the Septa train got a broke windshield that 188 could have gotten rocked as well... Which personally I think happened.. But my opinion doesn't matter to them..

1. Mention of airline loss of situational problem has been addressed by some airlines. hard and fast rule -- if an emergency or abnormal occurrence one pilot deals with emergency and other flies aircraft. Person dealing with problem just tells other what (s)he is doing. When flying a distraction can occur such as close traffic, weather, etc. So someone always flying aircraft.

There were two pilots trying to figure out what was going on with AF 447, and still it was placed into a stall by wrong inputs from the PIC causing it to crash. So I have no idea what you are trying to say. Who said that there is not someone flying the aircraft. The problem is there are many cases where a perfectly good aircraft is flown into terrain even in a fully controlled flight, e.g. the AA crash in South America into a mountain side some time back. At least AF 447 was not a controlled flight into ocean. It was a rather uncontrolled one by the time it crashed.

2. All reports so far says NTSB is just blaming no PTC. What about Amtrak not providing an limiting signal leading to CP curve ? Cab signal would have dropped 188's speed as well.

Actually what NTSB is also alluding to using the PTC terminology is that there was no ATC in place to force entry into the curve at a safe speed either, something that was present at other similar locations.CAB signal would drop speed only if the previous signal before the curve showed a less than Clear mode, which it did not. That was part of the beef, and that was the immediate fix following the derailment, pending installation and commissioning of ACSES transponder based speed control into the curve.

I can tell you that after the new year the distant signal to SHORE interlocking was still displaying an Approach Medium on 1-3 tracks. Granted the last time I was on the Del Air Branch was in January and that could have changed.

Now as to the report finding that he was distracted by Radio Traffic..

That's part of any engineers job, as well as a conductor. To monitor the radio for vital information that may effect their train. Other trains getting stoned or rocked does effect the train that he or she is currently running. Any day at any time. It is easy to get distracted by radio traffic. Very easy.

Another thing that will cause chaos with Amtrak and Moron Hill is that the NTSB suggestion that the windows were an issue.. IINM all the windows on the Acela Trainsets are emergency windows. Amfleet's only have IINM 2 a car. I can see the hearing now... Congress giving Amtrak's President (Boardman or New Guy/Gal) grief about it.. Which my reply is simple.. You want safer trains.. Fund them! Don't sit there and say fix it and not give funding.. I can see this happening now and it'll be pure entertainment.. Further comments will be left out..

 

[Devil's Advocate]

There's been a "don't cite me" source saying the cause was radio distraction with the reports of rock throwing. http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/16/politics/amtrak-188-derailment-engineer-distracted/

Someone always has to be "that guy" who will start the talking before the official word is out.. Why can't people like this keep their mouth shut and let the actual investigators do the talking?

They often are the actual investigators.

Source?

 

[Acela150]

Just watched the start of the local ABC's 6pm news.. Of course the money bag lawyers are all over it and of course have been.. They have issues with the fact that the engineer didn't remember almost anything at first and then was able to gain memory of the moments before the incident.. I love how these (insert many choice words here) lawyers act like he didn't sustain a serious concussion and that because of such incident he has issues with his memory.

I will be honest.. I have an extreme dislike for lawyers since I got sand bagged by one 4 years ago.

 

[Karl1459]

Just watched the start of the local ABC's 6pm news.. Of course the money bag lawyers are all over it and of course have been.. They have issues with the fact that the engineer didn't remember almost anything at first and then was able to gain memory of the moments before the incident.. I love how these (insert many choice words here) lawyers act like he didn't sustain a serious concussion and that because of such incident he has issues with his memory.

I will be honest.. I have an extreme dislike for lawyers since I got sand bagged by one 4 years ago.

Of course the same lawyer will argue that the lack of memory and slurred speech from the wreck their client caused while drunk could only have happened because of a head injury...

ps. To be clear, the NTSB has stated that the engineer WAS NOT chemically impaired.

 

[CHamilton]

Please, folks, read the FULL NTSB PRESS RELEASE. It's quite obvious that the causes were much more complex than is being reported some places.

 

[Acela150]

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/in-transit/Who-threw-the-rock.html

A well written and brief article.. I should add that the current Chief of Septa's Police force Thomas Nestel III is probably one of the best I've seen in any law enforcement agency. About a month or two ago a rider was on the Market-Frankford El and was being cursed at and all kinds of things that kids in the video shouldn't be saying.. These kids were between 5-8 which is a guess. The video went viral. Chief Nestel wanted to find these children saying such horrible things, not to arrest them or get them in any trouble, but to get these children help! He was very honest to the media and said "We don't want these kids in trouble and we won't be dragging them out of their house in handcuffs. We want to get these children the help that they need". (Something to that effect) I honestly wish all Law Enforcement personnel were like him.

 

[Alexandria Nick]

There's been a "don't cite me" source saying the cause was radio distraction with the reports of rock throwing. http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/16/politics/amtrak-188-derailment-engineer-distracted/

Someone always has to be "that guy" who will start the talking before the official word is out.. Why can't people like this keep their mouth shut and let the actual investigators do the talking?

They often are the actual investigators.

Source?

Personal experience. People closest to the source are the easiest point of contact and everyone knows someone. I've known a few NTSB investigators, all on the air side, and they weren't exactly the tightest lipped people.

 

[NW cannonball]

The NTSB report is published.

No link here, if you can't find NTSB.gov, sorry.

Lots of good info in the official report. Too much for some folk

Again, say, read the whole thing.

 

[CHamilton]

A better analysis than is being produced some places. http://www.rtands.com/index.php/safety-training/ntsb-shines-spotlight-on-ptc-following-amtrak-188-meeting.html?device=auto

 

[jis]

I found this slideset very informative and concise: http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/2016_Amtrak_BMG_Presentations.pdf

 

[B757Guy]

1. Mention of airline loss of situational problem has been addressed by some airlines. hard and fast rule -- if an emergency or abnormal occurrence one pilot deals with emergency and other flies aircraft. Person dealing with problem just tells other what (s)he is doing. When flying a distraction can occur such as close traffic, weather, etc. So someone always flying aircraft.

There were two pilots trying to figure out what was going on with AF 447, and still it was placed into a stall by wrong inputs from the PIC causing it to crash. So I have no idea what you are trying to say. Who said that there is not someone flying the aircraft. The problem is there are many cases where a perfectly good aircraft is flown into terrain even in a fully controlled flight, e.g. the AA crash in South America into a mountain side some time back. At least AF 447 was not a controlled flight into ocean. It was a rather uncontrolled one by the time it crashed.

2. All reports so far says NTSB is just blaming no PTC. What about Amtrak not providing an limiting signal leading to CP curve ? Cab signal would have dropped 188's speed as well.

Actually what NTSB is also alluding to using the PTC terminology is that there was no ATC in place to force entry into the curve at a safe speed either, something that was present at other similar locations.CAB signal would drop speed only if the previous signal before the curve showed a less than Clear mode, which it did not. That was part of the beef, and that was the immediate fix following the derailment, pending installation and commissioning of ACSES transponder based speed control into the curve.

Sadly, in both instances, it was fully pilot error. Situation awareness was part of the problem with the AA flight, but not all of it. On the AF flight, it was simply pilot error.

 

[George K]

Officials Release Never Before Seen Photos Of Damaged SEPTA Train


http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2016/05/20/officials-release-never-before-seen-photos-of-damaged-septa-train/

 

[Thirdrail7]

Meatloaf sings that two outta three ain't bad so while we have threads dealing with foamers, accidents and people that were employed while on drugs, let's see what the engineer (who allegedly meets the criteria for being a buff and definitely had was involved in an accident) of 188 is up to.

Apparently, it is a lawsuit!

Engineer sues Amtrak, claims derailed Philly train was 'under attack by projectiles'

Please allow a brief "fair use quote":

Engineer sues Amtrak, claims derailed Philly train was 'under attack by projectiles'

By John Kopp
PhillyVoice Staff

The engineer operating the Amtrak train that derailed in North Philadelphia two years ago, killing eight passengers, is suing the railroad.

Brandon Bostian, 33, alleges he sustained "serious, permanent and painful personal injuries" due to the "negligence and carelessness" of Amtrak on the night of the derailment. He is seeking at least $50,000.

Bostian's attorney, Robert S. Goggin III, filed the lawsuit Wednesday in the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia. The suit alleges his train "was under attack by projectiles," including one that caused him to become "disoriented" or "unconscious."

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Negligence and carelessness of Amtrak to not have Postive Train Control installed on that section of track.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

$50,000? Seems like a mighty small "asking price" given today's jury awards. Even if he was looking for a nuisance payoff, I would think his lawyer would take just about all of it.

Even with a comparative negligence finding, where it is found that Amtrak is 10% at fault, that would be a measly $5,000.

 

[George K]

$50,000? Seems like a mighty small "asking price" given today's jury awards. Even if he was looking for a nuisance payoff, I would think his lawyer would take just about all of it.

Even with a comparative negligence finding, where it is found that Amtrak is 10% at fault, that would be a measly $5,000.

Very common for lawsuits to ask for damages in excess of (insert sum here) in the complaint. The actual amount would be determined by jury after lawyers talk it out. I'm sure he's asking for millions.

 

[Thirdrail7]

Negligence and carelessness of Amtrak to not have Postive Train Control installed on that section of track.

So, since the feds allowed the installation of PTC to get pushed back (even though Amtrak was still working on it,) would they not share the negligence? Maybe we should take a page from Fulham's book and fire the person that hired the lone person to exceed the MAS on the curve and derail.

 

[jis]

This business about PTC not installed is mostly bovine scatology (the ***** UI would not let me use the shorter form of the term ) Engineers are finally still responsible for following signals, PTC or not. Actually NTSB even said as much, in spite of one misguided member of the group that produced the report.

This is sort of like saying that it was the airport's fault that there was no Cat III support when a pilot crashes a plane on landing in fog. It is always the Pilot's responsibility to figure out whether the operation is safe given what is available.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Negligence and carelessness of Amtrak to not have Postive Train Control installed on that section of track.

So, since the feds allowed the installation of PTC to get pushed back (even though Amtrak was still working on it,) would they not share the negligence? Maybe we should take a page from Fulham's book and fire the person that hired the lone person to exceed the MAS on the curve and derail.

One think that the lawyers will be stating this in the court room. I personally understand the responsibility of the engineer, and how projects are completed. But my understand and what is going to be said in a court room are not the same.
You really think the lawyer is not going to bring up a safety device? Or a lack of a safety device as negligence?

A few year back we had a safety device that one driver found annoying. So he wrap a sock around it to muffle the alarms. Rear ended a car. State Troopers saw the sock and off to jail the driver went. Did not matter to them what else happen. He disabled a safety device. He was guilty.

Negligence and carelessness is the claim. By not have a safety device at that location that would prevent overspeed.(If not PTC or the PRR system) Due to the lack of money or "we did not think we needed it there." Your going to prove your negligence and carelessness to the safety of the staff and passengers who ride your trains.

.