To date, there has been no discussion here regarding the Chester PA fatal incident involving The Palmetto 89 (3). Possibly just as well, as the only information available has been from general circulation media. However, TRAINS newswire has now reported and brings insight that media simply does not:
Fair Use (stretched a little - subscription content):
A source tells Trains News Wire that, at the time of the accident, track No. 2 had been taken out of service for track work.
“The gang had been fouling the other tracks at times and had received permission from the dispatcher to do so,” the source says. “Sunday morning, there was a shift change. The night foreman gave up all fouls (alerting train crews to the work), and the day shift foreman had not asked for any fouls.”
Yet the backhoe was fouling Track No. 3, an active track, when the accident occurred.
“We don’t know whether they thought they still had a foul or if they were just trying to make a quick move and got caught,” the source says of the workers using the backhoe. “In any case, the rules require the use of supplemental shunting devices (to trigger track-occupancy circuits) when equipment is used to foul a track for more than five minutes. No supplemental shunting devices were used.”.............So far, officials have yet to say what role, if any, Amtrak's Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement System played in the accident. The system would have detected shunting cables and marked the track occupied, if the crew used shunting cables correctly.
If fouled-track warnings still existed on dispatchers' panels, then there could be a weakness in the ACSES positive train control system, which is designed to accommodate such situations. Alternatively, if track supervisors removed the fouls Sunday morning, then responsibility for the accident would rest outside PTC. Amtrak recently finished installing ACSES between New York and Washington, D.C., as part of a safety-enhancing action following the May 2015 wreck of Amtrak Northeast Regional No. 188 north of Philadelphia.
“From what I understand, the backhoe was a contractor’s backhoe on the wrong track,” Quimby says. “There should have been an Amtrak liaison on site with the contractor to do safety briefings and training, to ensure proper location, and to handle or coordinate any problems as they might arise.”
“Somehow, it looks to me like somebody failed to follow established procedures. This looks like a classic miscommunication or misunderstanding,”..
Now what appears interesting is that the outside contractor, LORAM - the operator of the track machinery in the area is somehow involved even if the backhoe has been reported to have been operated by the deceased Amtrak employees. It appears that there is another donkey waiting to say "ouch" when the tail gets pinned on it.
Posted by palmland (Member # 4344) on :
It looks like PTC is no match with what appears to be human error.
Posted by Geoff Mayo (Member # 153) on :
The quote contains statements which, to me, sound like partial speculation ("from what I understand", "it looks like", ACSES vs shunting cables).
So I'll stick to what I assume are facts. Firstly, from reading the above it would seem that 4m59s of a digger hanging out over an active running line is perfectly okay. When I posed this to a safety assessor in the UK he asked "which 5 minutes is safe?" (rhetorical question - there is NO safe five minutes. Expect a train on any line in any direction at any time) - and in the UK the adjacent lines would be closed. I asked another safety assessor in Australia and his response was that the adjacent lines would have been closed or subject to a severe speed restriction.
Frankly, this was an accident just waiting to happen. And it just did. Will the appropriate authorities demand rule changes to limit the chances of this happening again?
With regards to ACSES/PTC/ETCS, none would cater for the situation of the boom of a crane, or the rear end of a digger/backhoe simply fouling the air above a track. With correct use of a shunting device - same anywhere that is track circuited - this would have dropped the track circuit (showing as not clear) and, depending on the signalling system, would show either a stop or a restricting aspect on the protecting signals.
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :