Amtrak Train 91-CSX collision in SC (2/4/18)/Liability issues

[The Iron Horse]

Investigative reporting generally takes weeks if not months of effort to complete. This is not investigative reporting. This is sensationalistic tabloid journalism. Journalists have always struggled with the moral and ethical weight of their positions, but back in the 1980's the news staff of major media companies were moved under their entertainment divisions. Instead of being judged on their accuracy and relevance reporters were now judged on how many eyeballs they could command through whatever means were available. Ever since then then the goal and obligation of informing a diverse audience in an objective fashion has slowly been abandoned and replaced with targeted emotion based reporting.

Yellow journalism. It's worse than ever.

 

[user 1215]

Newspapers have been doing it since Ben Franklin.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Good news is no news.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

And as much as I totally disagree about your opinion of Holt, I will say this -- all he does is read the crap that is put before him. Don't entirely blame him; point the finger where it belongs...

I have to factor into this, is that Holt is "selling" his reputation to NBC. The consequences of doing that, do indeed to fall upon his own shoulders.

Unfortunately, the public will always zero-in on the most well known name. So, the fault belongs to CSX and Amtrak.

 

[me_little_me]

Sad day for the victims. It was a Bad day for Railroading. Amtrak is probably not at fault, it certainty appears that way. That being said, they have to take responsibility and set procedures to make it impossible for this to happen in the future.

Impossible? Not possible. As long as there are humans that can make mistakes and mechanical/electrical/electronic systems that can fail, there will be accidents like this. Thye MAY be reduced but will never be "impossible to happen".

 

[KmH]

Sad day for the victims. It was a Bad day for Railroading. Amtrak is probably not at fault, it certainty appears that way. That being said, they have to take responsibility and set procedures to make it impossible for this to happen in the future.

What's impossible is to insure total and complete safety.

Which "they" have to take responsibility? CSX? Amtrak? FRA? Congress?

Procedures were in place to prevent this from happening. Those procedures were not followed. The switch was not reset after the freight train used it to get off the mainline, and a derail was not set on the siding.

It was a CSX freight that last used the switch, CSX trackage & dispatch.

Outside the NEC Amtrak has to rely on CSX, and the other host railroads Amtrak uses, doing their jobs.

 

[KmH]

Investigative reporting generally takes weeks if not months of effort to complete. This is not investigative reporting. This is sensationalistic tabloid journalism. Journalists have always struggled with the moral and ethical weight of their positions, but back in the 1980's the news staff of major media companies were moved under their entertainment divisions. Instead of being judged on their accuracy and relevance reporters were now judged on how many eyeballs they could command through whatever means were available. Ever since then then the goal and obligation of informing a diverse audience in an objective fashion has slowly been abandoned and replaced with targeted emotion based reporting.

The short version is - Making money, far and away, takes precedence over accurate reporting.

 

[PerRock]

Outside the NEC Amtrak has to rely on CSX, and the other host railroads Amtrak uses, doing their jobs.

..... And Michigan

 

[Seaboard92]

The question I hope gets answered is. Due to the cuts made by E Hunter Harrison in staffing, and operations do you think that could have contributed to this disaster.

 

[jis]

The diversion routing for 91 apparently is: (southbound) S-Line Selma-Hamlet, Andrews Sub Hamlet-Dillon, A-Line south

and vice versa for 92 northbound

 

[neroden]

The so-called indemnity agreements are against public poliicy, as the judge ruled in the Chase, Maryland case. Hopefully Anderson will make a very clear case in the media for changing the law which allows CSX to get away scot-free for criminal negligence. It seems like he's ready to take a pretty hard line...

The more Amtrak pushes to change how the indemnity agreements are handled the more of a lobbying target they paint on their back. If a large freight railroad doesn't like how liability disputes will be handled in the future they can simply overcharge Amtrak to prevent them from operating on their network at the completion of the current contract. Amtrak can fight this decision in court but any of the class one railroads can simply slow walk the court case until Amtrak has been bled dry.

Thinking outside the box...

Amtrak can file with the STB and seize the railroad from CSX by eminent domain. There's even precedent.

They'd need a financing partner... but CSX has been an LBO target for a while now. Find one.

CSX has essentially no clout right now, and is in total disarray. The freight class Is on the whole overestimate their lobbying power; while they can fool courts, their Congressional influence is at a low ebb right now.

CSX's position that it should not be liable for punitive damages for gross negligence is actually quite likely *unconstitutional*; laws have been declared invalid for less. I doubt they will want to push their luck if Amtrak calls for them to take responsibility for gross negligence (which really shouldn't be happening anyway), because the PR disaster from saying "We want to commit gross negligence" is much more expensive than the cost of paying off a couple of crashes. They only got away with it in the past under cover of darkness.

 

[user 1215]

The switch was not reset after the freight train used it to get off the mainline, and a derail was not set on the siding.

It was a CSX freight that last used the switch, CSX trackage & dispatch.

I submit a rewording of this point. The freight train was parked before the siding was padlocked unless it was padlocked before the train was moved, which is probably a stretch. I assume it would not be padlocked in the spur setting. That would then require a positive return to the main THEN padlocked. Looks like someone just locked the switch after the move without setting it to the main. May not be a whole lot different than what you said, but it was presumably set, incorrectly, and that could be a meaningful difference.

The question I hope gets answered is. Due to the cuts made by E Hunter Harrison in staffing, and operations do you think that could have contributed to this disaster.

I have an acquaintance that worked for CSX who recently retired. He was talking about some of the HUGE Harrison cuts. Not by like one person in each gang or department, but cutting some groups by 50-60% or more. Living close to the A-Line, I can't tell you how many more flat spots I hear from railcars passing by. Harrison may have put bubblegum on the cash leak, but he broke the dam. I don't know anything about his successor after he died, but presumably didn't do much to change things. Happy with the stock prices, I guess.

 

[KmH]

Outside the NEC Amtrak has to rely on CSX, and the other host railroads Amtrak uses, doing their jobs.

..... And Michigan

It's my understanding Amtrak doesn't own very much track in Michigan - just under 100 miles - Porter, IN to Kalamazoo, MI.

 

[jis]

The switch was not reset after the freight train used it to get off the mainline, and a derail was not set on the siding.

It was a CSX freight that last used the switch, CSX trackage & dispatch.

I submit a rewording of this point. The freight train was parked before the siding was padlocked unless it was padlocked before the train was moved, which is probably a stretch. I assume it would not be padlocked in the spur setting. That would then require a positive return to the main THEN padlocked. Looks like someone just locked the switch after the move without setting it to the main. May not be a whole lot different than what you said, but it was presumably set, incorrectly, and that could be a meaningful difference.

Switches have to be locked in position before anything is moved over them. It was padlocked in the siding position before the freight was moved over it. Or at least that is what the NTSB guy said in the press conference, and I suspect he might know what he was talking about. He explained the entire sequence that would be followed if proper procedure was followed.

 

[PerRock]

Outside the NEC Amtrak has to rely on CSX, and the other host railroads Amtrak uses, doing their jobs.

..... And Michigan

It's my understanding Amtrak doesn't own very much track in Michigan - just under 100 miles - Porter, IN to Kalamazoo, MI.

MDOT owns most of the rest of the line, to Ypsilanti or so. Amtrak controls & dispatches MDOT's section.

peter

 

[jis]

Amtrak also controls, maintains and dispatches Poughkeepsie to Hoffman's portion of the NEC, which is leased from the owner CSX for an extended period of time. Also Chicago Union Station I believe.

 

[MattW]

Do all switches have to be locked? Or just mainline switches? For switching around a yard or industry tracks, it seems inefficient to have to unlock, throw, lock every switch every time.

 

[jis]

Do all switches have to be locked? Or just mainline switches? For switching around a yard or industry tracks, it seems inefficient to have to unlock, throw, lock every switch every time.

I dunno. I am just parroting what was said.

That particular switch also has an electric lock which can be applied only in the main line position apparently and is visible at the dispatch center. but signal suspension apparently had suspended that functionality. The switch can be locked in both positions using the padlock, which is on the lever stand.

 

[xyzzy]

The short answer to your question is, it depends. The long answer is, railroading is a complex business and you've got to know what you're doing and what the various rules are.

In yards, trains operate at what's traditionally called "yard speed" which means being able to stop short of any obstruction, switch not set, etc and aside from that being able to stop in half the range of vision. There should never be a collision in a yard because even two engines headed directly toward each other should be able to stop.

On a CTC-equipped line, there is generally a limit of 20 mph at any switch that is not electrically locked. Again, this is to give the engineer a chance to stop short. Otherwise the assumption is that all switches in CTC territory are electrically locked; they require "time" to run before they can be thrown manually, and the time allows for a train in the block to clear the block. Of course, throwing the switch also sets signals to red.

Some sidings in CTC territory have track circuits both others don't, in which case they're generally limited to restricted speed like 15 mph max but in any case slow enough to stop short of any switch unexpectedly thrown from the siding.

In dark territory there is a protocol for unlocking and throwing switches manually. When signals do exist but are suspended as in this case, the dark territory protocol is supposed to be used. And apparently it was not.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

It's been a few years, but when I was trained and worked as a Conductor on a small shortline, the standard procedure during switching / yard moves, was to insert the latch of the lock into the switch, but not actually lock the lock so that we could change the position of the switch without getting our keys back out. After we were finished with the switch, we would fully lock.

I wouldn't be surprised if the rules would prohibit this now... FRA has gotten much more strict over the years, even with shortlines.

Do all switches have to be locked? Or just mainline switches? For switching around a yard or industry tracks, it seems inefficient to have to unlock, throw, lock every switch every time.

 

[MattW]

I appreciate the info xyzzy, very enlightening! One more semi-related question on this topic, would a train on the main throwing the switch to get into the siding or spur need to run time? The train is already in the block so I wouldn't think so since the signals should already be down in that block.

 

[user 1215]

The switch was not reset after the freight train used it to get off the mainline, and a derail was not set on the siding.

It was a CSX freight that last used the switch, CSX trackage & dispatch.

I submit a rewording of this point. The freight train was parked before the siding was padlocked unless it was padlocked before the train was moved, which is probably a stretch. I assume it would not be padlocked in the spur setting. That would then require a positive return to the main THEN padlocked. Looks like someone just locked the switch after the move without setting it to the main. May not be a whole lot different than what you said, but it was presumably set, incorrectly, and that could be a meaningful difference.

Switches have to be locked in position before anything is moved over them. It was padlocked in the siding position before the freight was moved over it. Or at least that is what the NTSB guy said in the press conference, and I suspect he might know what he was talking about. He explained the entire sequence that would be followed if proper procedure was followed.

So it's more likely that it was padlocked into place prior to the parking of the autorack train, and no action at all was taken before clearing the warrant as opposed to someone padlocking it after the move in the wrong position, thinking it was correct? I would presume that the NTSB Chairman also knows what he's talking about - but they hadn't interviewed the crew yet (unless we're talking about a new presser I haven't seen yet).

 

[Thirdrail7]

I appreciate the info xyzzy, very enlightening! One more semi-related question on this topic, would a train on the main throwing the switch to get into the siding or spur need to run time? The train is already in the block so I wouldn't think so since the signals should already be down in that block.

Not during a signal suspension. Additionally, the physical padlock is to prevent tampering.

 

[jis]

Typically NTSB will not disclose details of what they heard in interviews until all interviews are completed and analyzed, as stated by Mr. Sumwalt.

It is really speculation at present on when the lock was exactly put in place until we hear the specifics from the NTSB sometime in the future.

They had actually completed the interview of the CSX personnel before the presser yesterday, but he said he would not discuss any details since either he did not know or it would be inappropriate.

 

[user 1215]

Typically NTSB will not disclose details of what they heard in interviews until all interviews are completed and analyzed, as stated by Mr. Sumwalt.

It is really speculation at present on when the lock was exactly put in place until we hear the specifics from the NTSB sometime in the future.

They had actually completed the interview of the CSX personnel before the presser yesterday, but he said he would not discuss any details since either he did not know or it would be inappropriate.

Something else I just thought about when watching the second presser and reviewing the first one was that there was very little discussion about the switch from the yard to the main line. Obviously that wasn't the cause of the accident, but I wonder if clearing that switch may have been either misinterpreted by the dispatcher is clearing the main line and or after resetting the yard switch to the main they just forgot completely about the siding switch.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk