The NTSB has recovered the event recorder and Railhead Corp. video recorder from the control cab of the lead car of New Jersey Transit Pascack Valley Line train no. 1614, which crashed Sept. 29 in Hoboken Terminal. Data from both devices will be analyzed at the NTSB’s laboratory in Washington D.C.
While we’re waiting for the NTSB to analyze the event recorder data and forward-facing camera video on the NJ Transit cab car involved in the Sept. 29 Hoboken Terminal crash, assuming there is useable information (there is no data from the locomotive event recorder, because it was non-operational), let’s jump ahead a year or two and anticipate the conclusion of the NTSB’s investigation and the list of forthcoming recommendations.
An Oct. 3 National Transportation Safety Board update on the Sept. 29 crash of NJ Transit Pascack Valley Line train #1614 into the platform of the Hoboken Terminal has revealed that the event recorder in the train’s locomotive, which was in push mode (at the rear of the consist) was not functioning at the time of the wreck.
One of the trains involved in the June 28 head-on collision between two BNSF intermodal trains outside of Panhandle, Texas passed a red signal before the accident.
In a reply dated July 5, 2016, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) responded to a letter from Oregon’s U.S. senators regarding the June 3 Union Pacific oil train derailment in Mosier, Ore.
David Schanoes’ personal analysis of the Amtrak train No. 188 derailment at Frankford Junction curve on the Northeast Corridor last year elicited a response from National Transportation Safety Board Director Robert J. Hall, P.E. We publish it in full, followed by Schanoes’s response:
Executive Summary: After one year of investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board has determined that the cause of the fatal derailment of Amtrak train 188 at Frankford Junction is exactly the same as the cause determined within eight hours by everyone who knows anything about railroading.
One day after the National Transportation Safety Board released its findings on Amtrak 188’s derailment, National Association of Railroad Passengers President Jim Matthews issued this statement on May 18, 2016:
The National Transportation Safety Board has determined that the engineer of Amtrak Northeast Regional train no. 188 was likely distracted by radio traffic about an emergency situation on a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority Regional Rail train and lost track of where he was moments before the May 2015 overspeed wreck at Frankford Curve that killed eight and injured 200.
The Federal Railroad Administration sent its Status of Positive Train Control Implementation report to Congress showing that after seven years and significant assistance from FRA, most railroads will miss the December 31, 2015 positive train control (PTC) implementation deadline that Congress established in 2008. The report, which was mandated by the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, was sent to Congress on August 7.