another freak rail accident

[Anonymous]

Just a month after that container of whiskey fell off a derailed flatcar and crushed a van near Toronto, another tragic freak rail accident has occured.

Last weekend a mini-railcart used for unloading steel beams from freight cars slipped away from a freight train near Kendal, England, in the northwestern part of the country. It then slid away and struck five trackworkers a couple miles away, killing them. Apparently it was nighttime, they were working in floodlights, and they were also wearing helmets which one of the workers had apparently said obstructed his hearing, so they didn't even notice it coming. The British media are, of course, talking about the incident as indicative of Britain's current "rail crisis". I forget the exact link, but you can find it on the "top British news stories" on the BBC's website: http://www.bbc.co.uk.

It really is creepy how death can just sneak up on you like that. Of course, I don't think that happened for no reason at all. Someone has blood on their hands (accidentally, of course, but it's still there).

[Overmod]

Be interesting to find out exactly whether NAJPTC has programming that would have alerted the crews in time, if this had happened in their territory...

This is the flip side of 'positive train control' -- what do you do, and how do you do it, when there isn't any way to stop the train in question...

This is more than a little important, because one of the principal cost/complexity causes in this project has been the need to involve line workers, temporary slow orders, etc. in the PTC system. It only got worse after the CSX derailment near DC, which was supposedly due (last time I looked) to track that should have been under slow orders, but somebody thought the work was finished and lifted them. Not sure there's a way to fix every such problem in a deterministic control system like NAJPTC. Thoughts, anyone?

[kenneo]

Haven't seen "NAJPTC" What does it stand for? (PTC would probably mean Positive Train Control, but what about the balance?)

[mvlandsw]

This illustrates a flaw in communication based train control. If something that does not talk to the system is on the track there is no way to detect it. A freight car without the communication equipment does not show up in the signal system as it would with a track circuit based system.

[mudchicken]

This type of thing has been around as long as the railroad industry. Fortunately, it does not happen very often. The next time you are challenged by a railroader for fouling the track or being within 25 feet of the track remember this.

The type of positive train control involved has little or nothing to do with the loss of lading (illustrates nada in regards to PTC). The load was not secured on the railcar before it was moved, the shipper and/or car inspector that released the car is now in extremely deep doo-doo.....I feel for the trackmen's families.

Have seen a train in ABS & CTC territory have a piggyback trailer still attached to the kingpin swing out and destroy every wayside searchlight signal for 60 miles and then fall off in the main street middle of a small town at 6AM. The conductor and brakie riding the caboose for 60 miles saw nothing, so they claim. By the time the railroad found the missing trailer, half the lading (new tires) was stolen by the fine upstanding citizens of the small town.

[Overmod]

NAJPTC = North American Joint (positive train control). One of the current systems under development.

This accident has little or nothing to do with a 'loss of lading' if it rolled, successfully, down railroad tracks for 'a couple of miles' and then hit trackworkers. And yes, positive train control has EVERYTHING to do with alerting people about stuff that's moving on the right of way before it KILLS them. (Out of curiosity, what did you think would be the "correct" solution in those cases where PTC didn't, in fact, provide positive indication...)

My point about NAJPTC was partly that the system design, and implementation requirements, ballooned dramatically once 'realtime' protection of wayside crews 'no matter what' became part of the picture. andyjay described a situation where 'default' PTC protection, if properly designed, would almost certainly have prevented loss of life; my question was directed at the ways this might be done technically.

Incredible that the CTC dispatcher didn't notice signal after signal going bad for... what's track speed for that van train? Perhaps incredible too that the railroad had 'trouble' finding the missing trailer... hey boys, you might start looking around the point where the last of the signals stopped working?

I had thought that lineside damage detection was part of PTC design, at least post 9/11/2001. Is someone starting to argue that it isn't? (And if so, with what would you replace it and still sleep well at night?)

[Anonymous]

WELL WE NEED TO IMPROVE THE FALL OF CONTAINERS FOR SOMETHING IT WILL STOP THEM FROM FALLING