The Federal Railroad Administration has issued a Draft Safety Advisory, 2018-01, Related to Temporary Signal Suspensions. For the first time I can recall, FRA is soliciting public comment “on all aspects of the Draft Safety Advisory.”
What a world. FRA is on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube. NTSB is on Twitter and YouTube, and might be on Facebook, but I don’t know since the NTSB website doesn’t say one way or another, and I’m not on Facebook or Twitter, and not, to my knowledge on YouTube, or if I am, it’s not my doing, I promise.
We knew back in September 2017, when NTSB announced its board meeting to review and approve the findings of the investigations into the bumping block collisions at Hoboken and Atlantic Terminals, that come Feb. 6, 2018, NTSB was going to, ever so loudly, publicly hand FRA its head, a weirdly appropriate turn for a regulatory body still without a head.
As I understand it, communications and signals work was under way on CSX’s Columbia Subdivision at Cayce, S.C., when Amtrak 91, the Silver Star, collided with unattended locomotives and autoracks placed on the siding across from an automobile loading/unloading facility.
Those of you who know me know that I believe properly engineering a railroad means reducing the risk to safe train operations by properly configuring rolling stock, signals and track. Building the proper vehicles for running on the proper geometry is as important as properly operating that railroad. Almost.
Conrail’s Oak Island Yard in Newark, N.J., blew up at 12:14 AM on Jan. 7, 1983, some 35 years ago.
Way back in the day … I’m talking way back like 2013, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) was about to award some eager, bright, inquiring minds some money to do a study of the challenges and problems of PTC implementation on commuter railroads. The purpose of the study was to identify these challenges, and develop some iteration of “best practices” that might be of help to other properties facing the challenge of PTC implementation.
Anybody else here old enough to remember all the way back to June 2, 2015?
The National Transportation Safety Board, in its investgation into the April 3, 2016 fatal train accident involving Amtrak train 89 and maintenance-of-way equipment at Chester, Pa., made some damning determinations. I do mean damning, as in “leave your pass with the secretary, clean out your desk, and get off the property” damning.
In October, I made a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request to the Federal Railroad Administration for specific information regarding PTC performance on U.S. railroads. I received a reply on Nov. 21: