Amtrak level crossing crash in North Carolina

[MK Tom]

The Amtrak Carolinian hit a truck on a level crossing in North Carolina yesterday. There's a short article on it including a video of the crash taking place here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amtrak-train-truck-collide-in-north-carolina/

An Amtrak train hit a tractor-trailer that stalled on railroad tracks in North Carolina, toppling the engine onto its side and injuring dozens of people, CBS affiliate WRAL reported.

Transportation officials say 40 passengers were injured when the accident occurred. They said 25 people were taken to Halifax Regional Medical Center by bus and 15 by ambulance after the collision.



Officials said none of the injuries appeared to be life-threatening. A bus will take another 173 passengers who weren't injured to Richmond, Virginia.


Halifax County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Bruce Temple said the accident happened around noon in the town of Halifax.


The first two cars of the train derailed after the collision, Temple said. The North Carolina Department of Transportation said in a news release that the other car that derailed was a baggage car.


Halifax County law-enforcement officials say the collision toppled the engine onto its side....

Apparently there were multiple injuries but no fatalities. Not been a good few weeks for American rail travel.

 

[Ploughman]

BBC Item featuring the same footage without the advert.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-31810792

 

[MarkyT]

Looks like a rerun of our Hixon tragedy in 1968, luckily with fewer casualties. The item being carried on the truck was an electrical distribution unit, and the crossing a typical US automatic crossing similar to our AHBs.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/college-student-recent-car-wreck-survives-train-crash-29521862

"A tractor-trailer with a 127-ton load, so big that it required a special permit and a state trooper escort, got stuck at a difficult railroad crossing with time enough to warn train dispatchers. But there's no indication anyone alerted Amtrak before a passenger train slammed into it, injuring 55 people."

Nor did they bother to check the line was clear BEFORE authorising the road movement. Idiots!

 

[theageofthetra]

A couple of questions off this dreadful accident. 1) do US crossings/signals have telephones like in the UK? 2) Are the emergency services trained to know how to stop a train using their normal radio comms equipment /911 service?

 

[edwin_m]

Someone has posted on another forum that all grade crossings have a sign with an emergency phone number. If I wasn't supposed to be working I'd look for it on Streetview. Even if there was no cell coverage the police officer assisting could have radioed for their controller to make that call.

 

[MarkyT]

Someone has posted on another forum that all grade crossings have a sign with an emergency phone number. If I wasn't supposed to be working I'd look for it on Streetview. Even if there was no cell coverage the police officer assisting could have radioed for their controller to make that call.

The StreetView images are rather poor and grainy in the area, unfortunately. After the initial round yellow/black cross advance warning sign (with associated road markings), there are some other small signs on approach to the crossing. First is a a blue square with white text a little before the crossing, then there is a round sign with red border with some symbol or text within it immediately followed by a right turn junction onto a minor road. Then, immediately before the crossing light gantry and stop line there is another small rectangular sign with black text on a white background, alongside green junction direction signs for the intersection immediately beyond the tracks. I cannot read anything on any of these signs.

 

[MarkyT]

This looks informative:

http://www.ite.org/bookstore/gradecrossing/

Also this:

http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/services/publications/fhwaop02084/

 

[MarkyT]

The latter handbook includes the blue emergency sign, but the blue sign seen at Halifax was quite small and could not have had that quantity of text in its three lines, so was more likely a standard informational sign (i.e non safety-related - gas, rest area)

So my conclusion is I cannot see any explicit signage around this crossing that informs of what to do or who to contact in an emergency.

 

[talltim]

This video show the sign
http://www.wncn.com/story/28359720/highway-patrol-never-notified-csx-prior-to-amtrak-collision

 

[MarkyT]

This video show the sign
http://www.wncn.com/story/28359720/highway-patrol-never-notified-csx-prior-to-amtrak-collision

A tiny sign not very visible on approach. Not good. More seriously, no realisation on behalf of the escort or the route planners that manoeuvring such a long load across an intersection immediately beyond the track perhaps at walking pace with stops and starts would be effectively an unannounced emergency blockage of the railway, because it would take so long. Automatic crossings usually rely on the principle that road vehicles move quickly across the rails and don't block back. Whether or not the rig was actually stuck, broken down or otherwise technically immobile isn't relevant. Ideally, as in UK, such a road movement should have to be authorised or at least notified to the signaller/dispatcher before starting to cross the railway, so they can apply protections and reminders, make calls and log entries as necessary.

 

[Ash Bridge]

A tiny sign not very visible on approach. Not good. More seriously, no realisation on behalf of the escort or the route planners that manoeuvring such a long load across an intersection immediately beyond the track perhaps at walking pace with stops and starts would be effectively an unannounced emergency blockage of the railway, because it would take so long. Automatic crossings usually rely on the principle that road vehicles move quickly across the rails and don't block back. Whether or not the rig was actually stuck, broken down or otherwise technically immobile isn't relevant. Ideally, as in UK, such a road movement should have to be authorised or at least notified to the signaller/dispatcher before starting to cross the railway, so they can apply protections and reminders, make calls and log entries as necessary.

I don't know if you agree, but on the face of things safety standards in these matters appear to be much more stringent in the UK and indeed most other European countries than they seem to be in the USA.

 

[edwin_m]

I don't know if you agree, but on the face of things safety standards in these matters appear to be much more stringent in the UK and indeed most other European countries than they seem to be in the USA.

Europe mainly relies on legislation to enforce standards of health and safety. In the States I think it is more to do with the threat of lawsuits from the victims against the perpetrators of unsafe acts.

 

[CharlieSpotted]

From the footage, that seems to be one very sturdy train indeed. How do American passenger trains like that compare to ours, in terms of crashworthiness? Seems like it could have been a lot worse.

 

[talltim]

American trains are very much designed with hitting large objects in mind. As well as being a lot bigger, and thus heavier, the safety emphasis is on crash survivability rather than crash prevention.

 

[MarkyT]

I don't know if you agree, but on the face of things safety standards in these matters appear to be much more stringent in the UK and indeed most other European countries than they seem to be in the USA.

There are thousands of automatic crossings across the nation and fairly frequent collisions in total, but perhaps at very local level they don't feel particularly excessive, given the sparsity of population and low traffic levels in many rural areas, both rail and road. Very few incidents damage their heavily built (mostly freight) trains seriously and the road user is usually considered to be at fault. I don't know if they've had their 'Hixon moment' before. I would have thought this precise kind of incident could be fairly easily prevented in future by tightening up procedures for these exceptional loads if they are found lacking, which, after all are specially authorised by highway authorities and even escorted by police. More worrying is the radical deflection of the passenger rail vehicles caused by the much smaller and lighter 'regular' truck and trailer involved in the recent LA crossing collision, which may not have even been caught by any further rules to require 'long or slow' vehicle to stop and get permission to cross, as applying at UK AHBs.

 

[ac6000cw]

Some Americans just seem to have a wilful blind-spot when it comes to level (grade) crossing safety. Despite the railroads having run crossing safety awareness campaigns for many years, some drivers never seem to consider that a train might arrive while they are sitting on the crossing, or will drive around the barriers unless the train is practically on top of them. Even though I'm only an occasional visitor the US, I've seen first hand two pickup trucks - following each other - weave through the crossing barriers maybe 50m in front of a freight train (close enough that I was holding my breath....)

 

[Ash Bridge]

Europe mainly relies on legislation to enforce standards of health and safety. In the States I think it is more to do with the threat of lawsuits from the victims against the perpetrators of unsafe acts.

Ah, I see, so quite a different approach to these matters than on this side of the Atlantic then.

There are thousands of automatic crossings across the nation and fairly frequent collisions in total, but perhaps at very local level they don't feel particularly excessive, given the sparsity of population and low traffic levels in many rural areas, both rail and road. Very few incidents damage their heavily built (mostly freight) trains seriously and the road user is usually considered to be at fault. I don't know if they've had their 'Hixon moment' before. I would have thought this precise kind of incident could be fairly easily prevented in future by tightening up procedures for these exceptional loads if they are found lacking, which, after all are specially authorised by highway authorities and even escorted by police. More worrying is the radical deflection of the passenger rail vehicles caused by the much smaller and lighter 'regular' truck and trailer involved in the recent LA crossing collision, which may not have even been caught by any further rules to require 'long or slow' vehicle to stop and get permission to cross, as applying at UK AHBs.

Yes, indeed, just to briefly mention the Hixon collision, considering the high speed of the train in this incident plus the fact the transporter here had a 150 tonne transformer onboard (as opposed to 127tonnes in yesterday's crash) the locomotive and train withstood the impact rather well in the circumstances i.e. Remaining upright and pretty well in line, btw. no disrespect to those who sadly did lose there lives here, I think E3009 was actually removed by rail after re-railing. Back to American crash, I thought at first it was a DVT as the bogies looked rather insubstantial for a loco, then I learn it was a GE PD42 B-B type locomotive which weigh around 15tonnes less than a class 60/70 and about a metre shorter.

 

[ac6000cw]

Back to American crash, I thought at first it was a DVT as the bogies looked rather insubstantial for a loco, then I learn it was a GE PD42 B-B type locomotive which weigh around 15tonnes less than a class 60/70 and about a metre shorter.

The GE P40/P42s have European designed bogies (from Krupp/Siemens in Germany) and monocoque body structure, so they are stronger and stiffer than they look at first sight.

 

[talltim]

They are also considerably lighter at about 120 metric tons than most freight locos, for example the GE es44ac comes in at about 188 metric tons

 

[ac6000cw]

They are also considerably lighter at about 120 metric tons than most freight locos, for example the GE es44ac comes in at about 188 metric tons

....or about 196 tonnes for the CSX and NS 'heavy'/high tractive effort ES44 versions (that's 32.6 tonne axle load!).