NTSB official questions national rail safety supervision

Repeated, reckless rule violations emerging from the investigation of last year’s deadly Metrolink crash are exposing systemic problems in the nation's rail safety enforcement and sharpening differences over how to prevent accidents in the years until high-tech collision avoidance systems can be deployed.

A long-embraced pillar of train safety enforcement for Metrolink and other rail systems—so-called “efficiency” field testing—came under fire in Washington today from the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board panel probing the Chatsworth crash that killed 25 and injured 135.

Kathryn O'Leary Higgins noted that at least four serious violations of safety regulations have been exposed in the examination of the Sept. 12 head-on collision between a commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train:  on-duty cellphone use, a failure to confirm signal colors, unauthorized ride-alongs and marijuana use by a train crew member.

The industry must devise a more effective way to police train crews because traditional field inspections by supervisors are not working, she told reporters. “It’s a handful of people who all know each other," Higgins said.

The Metrolink engineer in the Chatsworth crash was considered a valued, above-average employee based on field tests by his direct employer, Connex Railroad LLC, investigators noted. Cellphone violations in particular are a major problem and regulators need to find new oversight tools, whether they are on-board video cameras or new random testing techniques, officials said.

Indeed, records and testimony released this week documented repeated cellphone violations on the Metrolink and Union Pacific systems alone, both of which were involved in the Sept. 12 crash. As a result of the crash, the worst in modern California history, Congress ordered that the nation’s train system be controlled by computerized crash-avoidance technology within five years.

But a showdown is looming over what to do in the interim. Metorlink says it is pushing ahead with live video cameras focused on train operators, but powerful unions representing engineers and conductors today  insisted that placing two crew members in every cab is the solution. “We certainly don’t support the requirement or the installation of any recording device” inside train cabs because of privacy concerns, said William Walpert, national secretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.

-- Robert J.Lopez and Rich Connell

Photo: Kathryn Higgins, chairwoman of a board of inquiry, confers with general counsel Gary Halbert, left, and panel member Robert Chipkevich during National Transportation Safety Board  hearings on the Chatsworth rail collision. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

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Comments

[Stephen Stone]

Safety outweighs privacy when peoples lives are at risk. Sorry Union, but you lose this one.

[Moe L.]

Of course the unions want a second person in the cab instead of a camera; it automatically doubles their membership.
And why not a camera? What privacy? You're at work for heaven's sake!!!

[Dave]

Unions root of all evil in some cases. They don't care about the safety of the passengers, just whether a camera may catch an engineer doing wrong. What is wrong with these backward thinking union officials. No wonder the rail systems is so backward and outdated, unions want it kept that way. making them feel real important. Maybe this rail union should be thrown out and replaced by officials that really care about their union members and passengers. They don't care if they workers get killed. They just care about theirselves and their big office they hold.

[danz m]

how is an extra crew member going to prevent cell phone use?
you think one guy would snitch on the other?

[Matt Rackham]

People seem to forget that the standard for many years was to have two or more people in the cab. The "fireman" position was kept long after there was any fire to stoke because having two people in the cab was a proven safety device.

Railroads eventually eliminated that position as a cost-cutting move, claiming it was just a union ploy and that safety would not be compromised. Turns out that they were wrong. Things should go back to the way they were.

Do you want to fly on a commercial jet without a co-pilot? Airlines have already suggested eliminating that position. And if they do, someone will figure out how to blame subsequent crashes on the unions, no doubt.