Serious Amtrak derailment in Missouri (27/06)

[DelW]

Eastbound Southwest Chief suffered major derailment east of Kansas City, following a collision at an open farm crossing. Initial reports stated that the other vehicle involved was a dump truck.
Curiously the lead loco looks to be upright and on the rails, trailing loco and baggage car are leaning at an angle, and all seven Superliner passenger cars are on their sides on the ground.
Amtrak official statement is here:

Amtrak Advisory | Service Disruption on Southwest Chief Train 4

www.amtrak.com

On June 27 at 12:42 p.m. CT, Southwest Chief Train 4, traveling eastbound on BNSF track from Los Angeles to Chicago, 8 cars and 2 locomotives derailed after striking a truck that was obstructing a public crossing near Mendon, Missouri. There were approximately 275 passengers and 12 crew members onboard.

 

[hexagon789]

Eastbound Southwest Chief suffered major derailment east of Kansas City, following a collision at an open farm crossing. Initial reports stated that the other vehicle involved was a dump truck.
Curiously the lead loco looks to be upright and on the rails, trailing loco and baggage car are leaning at an angle, and all seven Superliner passenger cars are on their sides on the ground.

All derailed, though lead loco barely, train was in 90mph territory and was apparently running at or near this speed.

Furthermore, the train was fully booked and actually carrying overflow (excess passengers were being conveyed in the Lounge Car).

Sadly 4 deaths announced so far, there were 243 passengers on-board according to Amtrak.

 

[randyrippley]

deleted

 

[WatcherZero]

Just a rolling chassis of the truck left.

 

[tomuk]

Looking at the photos there doesn't appear to be a large emergency response I assume that's due to the rural location of the accident.

 

[MarcVD]

Image from a US newspaper

 

[ac6000cw]

At least the train appears to have stayed in line and probably coupled together, otherwise it might easily have been worse. Looks like maybe the lead loco derailed when it hit the truck and spread the track, derailing the rest of the train.

 

[OldandRambling]

3 dead from reports. Train was said to be travelling at 90 MPH at the time of collision with truck.

 

[cambsy]

I remember being on an Amtrak train, going from Orlando, to Jacksonville, when 16, 33 years ago, on holiday with mum, when the train hit a vehicle on an open level crossing, which delayed train about 2-3 hours, was certainly, an experience, luckily if remember correctly there were no injuries, on the train.

30 odd years later, Amtrak trains , still seem to be hitting, fairly regularly, vehicles on crossings, which seems to be something they are used to over there, so suppose, they Accept it as something which happens, as they have so many open crossings, especially, in towns and villages etc, and i dont think its something they will realistically get rid of.

Of course, condolences to the dead and injured passengers, in this bad crash, and not playing down the severity, of this crash.

 

[tomuk]

Looking at the photos there doesn't appear to be a large emergency response I assume that's due to the rural location of the accident.

Further to my earlier post it appears the derailment was near a 'town' population 163. It is over 70 miles to the nearest Interstate and 80 miles to Kansas City the nearest sizeable settlement.

 

[MadMac]

Something not quite adding up here. In the US, maximum speed on a line with crossings is 79, but the train was reported as doing 90. Was this truck on a crossing or trying to get across somewhere it shouldn’t?

 

[Taunton]

Something not quite adding up here. In the US, maximum speed on a line with crossings is 79, but the train was reported as doing 90. Was this truck on a crossing or trying to get across somewhere it shouldn’t?

The Federal 79mph limit is for lines without cab signals, the majority (it's 59mph for lines without signals at all, run on train orders). The double track BNSF main Los Angeles to Chicago line does have cab signals so can be, and is, faster.

 

[notverydeep]

I remember being on an Amtrak train, going from Orlando, to Jacksonville, when 16, 33 years ago, on holiday with mum, when the train hit a vehicle on an open level crossing, which delayed train about 2-3 hours, was certainly, an experience, luckily if remember correctly there were no injuries, on the train.

30 odd years later, Amtrak trains , still seem to be hitting, fairly regularly, vehicles on crossings, which seems to be something they are used to over there, so suppose, they Accept it as something which happens, as they have so many open crossings, especially, in towns and villages etc, and i dont think its something they will realistically get rid of.

Of course, condolences to the dead and injured passengers, in this bad crash, and not playing down the severity, of this crash.

Essentially US railways (railroads) have a terrible safety record by developed world standards and their thousands of awfully designed level (grade) crossings and widely ignored are at the heart of the problem, leading to 100s of casualties in road vehicles each year plus significant numbers of derailments. The single Brightline route alone accounting for more in a year than the entire European rail network’s level crossings! The scale of the problem is demonstrated by the literally 100s of YouTube videos not just of the aftermath of such incidents, but them actually occurring!

The US rail authorities need to stop relying on building trains like proverbial ‘brick outhouses’, limiting them to steam age speeds and crossing its fingers (passengers are still injured or worse by being thrown around or ejected) and start investing in proper risk assessment and proper mitigation efforts at crossings and in trains…

 

[Teithiwr]

The figures are incredible by any standards.

 

[Taunton]

Couplers seem to have held for the whole formation, but the whole lot have gone on their sides. Be rather difficult with Superliners to evacuate them when overturned, just one door on each side at the lower level, where most passengers are not, and the stairs are now sideways; there are push-out emergency windows on the upper deck but obviously unreachable to push upwards when overturned, and as they are push-out impossible for those outside to enter.

I have always felt the high Superliners to be rather unstable; on lower quality track they will roll, pretty much as usual, but as the gangways (diaphragms in the US) are at the upper level they can get notably displaced even with the normal rolling of adjacent vehicles, to the point it looks dangerous to cross between vehicles when say going through pointwork leaving a terminus.

 

[hexagon789]

Something not quite adding up here. In the US, maximum speed on a line with crossings is 79, but the train was reported as doing 90. Was this truck on a crossing or trying to get across somewhere it shouldn’t?

80mph or over requires for lines automatic trainstop or cab signalling, hence the arcane 79mph figure; there are open crossings where Amtrak runs through at 110mph.

The Federal 79mph limit is for lines without cab signals, the majority (it's 59mph for lines without signals at all, run on train orders). The double track BNSF main Los Angeles to Chicago line does have cab signals so can be, and is, faster.

It has 1920/1930s-era and 1950s-era inductive automatic trainstop (ATS) which permits 90mph (was 100 until 1957), not full cab signalling.

They do have PTC as well though, which became a requirement for all passenger trains a couple of years ago, which monitors train speed and automatically brakes any infractions by more than 1.5mph.

The ATS sections in Missouri are unique among ATSF installations in being bi-directional. Other ATSF ATS equipment can only be used in one direction, so opposite direction moves on bi-directional track are limited to 79mph because ATS is only active in one direction.

 

[DelW]

It was statistically quite unlikely that a collision at that location would involve a passenger train, since there's only one Amtrak each way per day among dozens of freights including high speed Z-trains. Had it been a freight that hit the truck it would have attracted relatively little attention since such events are quite frequent, as shown in the table in post 14 above. Unless leaking and/or hazardous materials are involved, even derailments with multiple locos and wagons on the ground are unlikely to appear in the national media.

It was the second US passenger train / vehicle grade crossing collision this week. The first, in California, also caused three deaths, though they were all in the road vehicle:

3 Women Killed in Amtrak Collision Near Brentwood Were Headed to Funeral Fundraiser

Three women were killed when an Amtrak commuter train smashed into their car in Contra Costa County as they were headed to a fundraiser at a vineyard for a Brentwood resident who died less than a week ago.

www.nbcbayarea.com

An Amtrak train running through unincorporated Brentwood smashed into a car containing five people Sunday afternoon at a private crossing with no gates, killing three and leaving an adult and a child hospitalized with "major injuries."

 

[daodao]

Essentially US railways (railroads) have a terrible safety record by developed world standards and their thousands of awfully designed level (grade) crossings and widely ignored are at the heart of the problem, leading to 100s of casualties in road vehicles each year plus significant numbers of derailments. The single Brightline route alone accounting for more in a year than the entire European rail network’s level crossings! The scale of the problem is demonstrated by the literally 100s of YouTube videos not just of the aftermath of such incidents, but them actually occurring!

Unfortunately for future US rail safety, this accident incident is likely to be overshadowed by the deaths of at least 46 illegal immigrants in an abandoned truck in nearby Texas.

 

[LeeLivery]

View attachment 116837The figures are incredible by any standards.

2,100 collisions a year!? That's around 6 a day. Yes, it's a big place, but goodness gracious

 

[Taunton]

One habit I picked up from the USA is to, at any level crossing, turn radio off and open the car window to hear better the horn of any approaching train. It's actually a law for trucks and buses in the US, and while buses are pretty rigorous about it many truck drivers seem not to bother. I do this even at crossings back here in Britain, always have done.

It's also the requirement there for these heavy vehicles to stop first at every crossing, signals or not, and while you can see the intent, it does mean that they then take longer to cross when they are getting going again, and are more likely to stall.

 

[ac6000cw]

Just to provide some comparative level crossing safety statistics for Europe (from an official 2018 UIC safety report - https://safetydb.uic.org/IMG/pdf/sdb_report_2018_public.pdf ):

In 2017 there were about 100,000 level crossings on European railways (about 55% 'active' and 45% 'passive' crossings - it doesn't say in the report, but I assume 'active' means they have flashing lights, barriers etc). For comparison the US in 2015 had about 130,000 public crossings - about 55% 'active' and 45% 'passive' - and 80,000 private crossings.

There were about 430 level crossing accidents (about 2/3 vehicle collisions, 1/3 pedestrians), resulting in about 280 deaths and about 240 serious injuries (nearly all '3rd parties' i.e. not passengers or staff)

As for differences between European countries, I came across this page which breaks down the level crossing accident stats for 2008 by country - https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/mar/10/level-cross-accident-statistics - the UK had the lowest death rate per head of population, with Hungary and Latvia being the worst.

 

[notverydeep]

Just to provide some comparative level crossing safety statistics for Europe (from an official 2018 UIC safety report - https://safetydb.uic.org/IMG/pdf/sdb_report_2018_public.pdf ):

In 2017 there were about 100,000 level crossings on European railways (about 55% 'active' and 45% 'passive' crossings - it doesn't say in the report, but I assume 'active' means they have flashing lights, barriers etc). For comparison the US in 2015 had about 130,000 public crossings - about 55% 'active' and 45% 'passive' - and 80,000 private crossings.

There were about 430 level crossing accidents (about 2/3 vehicle collisions, 1/3 pedestrians), resulting in about 280 deaths and about 240 serious injuries (nearly all '3rd parties' i.e. not passengers or staff)

To be fair to the US, the European Level Crossing fatality rate is higher than I had expected, reading the report linked (if I have interpreted table 1.17 correctly) 146 / 280 of the fatalities were pedestrians with the remainig 134 being presumably vehicle occupants, with no on train fatalities at Level Crossings (in 2017). It isn't clear that the numbers posted by @Teithiwr include US pedestrians killed or injured on grade crossings - although it is possible that the numbers of pedestrians crossing railways using Level Crossings is much smaller in the US than Europe as the vast majority of such crossings are probably located away from any 'walkable' neighbourhoods.

Perhaps a good comparison between the two continents' rail networks might be incidents compared to total train movement across Level Crossings, but I don't know if these statistics are available for either. The higheset numbers of fatalities on European railways are people hit by trains away from Level Crossings, which will include a good number of 'deliberate acts' rather than accidents (that is tresspass or suicide).

 

[RichJF]

2,100 collisions a year!? That's around 6 a day. Yes, it's a big place, but goodness gracious

Given the extremely poor standard of driving in many US states that I've driven in/visited that doesn't surprise me!

 

[pdeaves]

Given the extremely poor standard of driving in many US states that I've driven in/visited that doesn't surprise me!

I've read somewhere (it's only a memory now; I can't cite a source) that a substantial proportion (maybe as much as 40%) of US crossing incidents happen after the locomotive is way past the crossing (i.e. road vehicles hitting the side of the train).

 

[Yankee01]

The State of Missouri had this particular crossing on a long list of crossings slated for safety improvements or outright closure in a report at the start of the year. Lights and gates are to be added at this one with a cost of 400k USD.

 

[LeeLivery]

I've read somewhere (it's only a memory now; I can't cite a source) that a substantial proportion (maybe as much as 40%) of US crossing incidents happen after the locomotive is way past the crossing (i.e. road vehicles hitting the side of the train).

'merica!

 

[DelW]

Two factors that may worsen US numbers in comparison with European, is the difference in both length and speed of trains. Most European trains are less than half a mile long, and usually travelling at 50 - 60mph, so they're only on the crossing for 30 seconds or so. Plenty of US freights are 2 - 3 miles long, and travelling at typically 30mph, so will be on the crossing for 5 or 6 minutes. In some areas where speeds are restricted, crossings may be closed for 10 minutes or so for a single train. The longer a crossing is typically closed, the greater the temptation for vehicle drivers to try to get across in front of a train, especially on unbarriered crossings.

 

[eldomtom2]

The State of Missouri had this particular crossing on a long list of crossings slated for safety improvements or outright closure in a report at the start of the year. Lights and gates are to be added at this one with a cost of 400k USD.

Frankly it is hard to consider the state of American railroads anything other than shambolic if a 90mph crossing was allowed to go without even lights for this long.

But then American railroads have always had a terrible safety record compared to European railways.

 

[hexagon789]

Frankly it is hard to consider the state of American railroads anything other than shambolic if a 90mph crossing was allowed to go without even lights for this long.

But then American railroads have always had a terrible safety record compared to European railways.

It's not entirely fair to compare it to Europe. Yes permitted speed is 90 bit there's only one train a day each way that does that speed, all others are freights limited to 70 but mostly running at 50mph.

 

[eldomtom2]

Even 50mph I would consider highly dubious for an unsignalled crossing.