Amtrak Wreck in Philadelphia

[tree68]

Norm48327

A standard CVR is capable of recording 4 channels of audio data for a period of 2 hours.

Well, at least the 2 and the 4 are both there...  

[samfp1943]

edblysard

35 MK1500D (PTRA)locomotives, several Class 1  locomotives on unit trains and a average of 15 three man crews per shift, 3 shifts per 24 hours, several extras.

Superintendent has the ability to veiw the locomotive cameras in real time, or record them, plus something like six cameras in each of our yards, one in our lunch room.

Employee privacy is not a concern to the PTRA management.

 

Maybe, A mandate for body cameras on the various 'Brass Hats' and other bureaucrats would be a fair deployment of cameras in the workplace....

   With the current national love affair with body cameras at the 'Political Levels' of affairs....Body cameras mandated fir politicians (of BOTH parties) would be a good thing... Play the films taken on a Television Show...Surely, it would provide lots of Drama, and Pathos, but would also kill their abiulity to have any plausable deniability!         A situation for pols, who would jump up and down, asking "...Who are you going to believe?...Me ! or your lying ears, eyes, and knowledge of reality?.."

 

[ACY Tom]

Just musing:

What would have happened if bankers had been required to wear a wire and a body camera prior to the 2008 debacle?

Tom

[edblysard]

But he has tagged them for asking all the wrong questions about stuff that made no difference in this instance.

Everybody is dancing around the real questions and forwarding their agenda.

[Euclid]

ACY

Just musing:

What would have happened if bankers had been required to wear a wire and a body camera prior to the 2008 debacle?

Tom

 

It would have probably prevented them from being blamed for it.

[Euclid]

It sounds like the discovery of whether or not the engineer was using his cell phone during the wreck is going to be very difficult.  You would think that it would only take a hour or so.    

[BaltACD]

Euclid

ACY

Just musing:

What would have happened if bankers had been required to wear a wire and a body camera prior to the 2008 debacle?

Tom

 

It would have probably prevented them from being blamed for it.

 

But it would not have stopped it.  Today's parallel - FIFA - openly corrupt.

[wanswheel]

C-Span cameras certainly coax theatrical performances by legislators.

Re: derailment speed, in case that horse isn’t dead.

Excerpt from Joe Boardman’s testimony to the House Transportation Committee

http://transportation.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2015-06-02-boardman.pdf

The derailment speed at Frankfort Junction is 98 mph. Northbound trains approach that curve at 80 mph, while southbound trains approach at 110 mph. So in short, when a train approaches from one direction but doesn’t slow down, there is no risk of derailment; but if when a train comes from the other direction and doesn’t slow down—for whatever reason—there is a risk of derailment. Thus we applied the modification to the southbound tracks so that the trains approaching from the north at speeds of 110 mph would receive a signal indication in the cab just before the curve, forcing them to slow to 45 mph so that they could pass through the curve safely at 50 mph. The northbound track did not have the same protection installed, because the approach speed was 80 mph, which was slow enough that a train could round the curve at that speed without derailing if the engineer failed to slow down. At that time, the notion that an engineer might actually accelerate into the northbound curve was not a circumstance we anticipated, and thus didn’t mitigate for it.

[Euclid]

Quote from Joe Boardman:

“The northbound track did not have the same protection installed, because the approach speed was 80 mph, which was slow enough that a train could round the curve at that speed without derailing if the engineer failed to slow down. At that time, the notion that an engineer might actually accelerate into the northbound curve was not a circumstance we anticipated, and thus didn’t mitigate for it.”

 

It is incredibly flawed logic to assume that the risk of derailment is only predicated on a failure to slow down from the highest speed limit associated with only one direction.  The risk of derailment can also come from knowingly violating the lower speed limit from the opposite direction.  It can also come from mistakenly believing that the speed limit has risen.  

The basic point is that the curve is there and it requires a lower speed than what is allowed on much of the line.  Since the curve does not care what the reason for excessive speed is; and since it requires a speed control for one possible reason for speeding; then it follows that it should provide a speed control for all cases of speeding, no matter what the reason.  That would require a speed control for BOTH directions.

[BaltACD]

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/david-schanoes/house-ti-hearing-a-litany-of-embarrassments.html?channel=

[schlimm]

Exactly!   And the correct answer is.......HUMAN error.

Question:  Had PTC been fully operational in that stretch, would it not have automatically taken over control and reduced speed when engineer mistakenly accelerated far above the speed limit?

[Norm48327]

Euclid

It sounds like the discovery of whether or not the engineer was using his cell phone during the wreck is going to be very difficult.  You would think that it would only take a hour or so.    

 

Have you done that before?

[Euclid]

My prediction is that the cause of this accident will go unresolved.  Nobody will be blamed for it. 

[blue streak 1]

Norm48327

A standard CVR is capable of recording 4 channels of audio data for a period of 2 hours.

 

Generally speaking that is the case but things may have changed.  CVRs originally recorded on a wire recorder but too many got torn up. Then digital type were installed.  Now each radio channel records separately ( allows easy syncronizing from cockpit and ATC tapes ) and one or more area Mics.  FAA regulations requires at least 2  hours recording time but it can be more using digital media.

Once engines are shut down, airplane on landing gear, & parking brake set the CVR can be erased by button on area mic.  maybe a similar system on loco cameras ?

A problem that many of our airplane incident investigations have is the loss of recording if the  essential power bus looses power.   If there was a standby battery that would continue recording for at least 15 minutes many insights to incidents would become apparent.  The Swiss air inflight fire and crash into ocean is one example.

These power losses also  apply to flight data recorders.  They do have a diifferent power bus.  FDRs now record over 200 different imputs. Some imputs are throttle position, engine throttle position, ( in case of differences ), RPMs, contol positions, power draws, every piece of equipment either operationg or not, airspeed, pitch, yaw, bank angle, flight management system settings, cockpit door, g forces, etc. 

[Electroliner 1935]

Paul, the link you posted http://ten90solutions.com/ask_many________questions_get_many________answers  y has so many valid points that it really puts the competance of the NTSB in question. The cell phone timing questions are spot on and raise the issue of why didn't they resolve it. My only thought is since a 911 call is not a billable call, it might not be logged the same as one that is. However, I don't believe that is the case. Therefore, I have no clue why the NTSB investigators can't use your logic to determine when the logged calls were made. As was said in the KING & I, tis a puzzlement. 

 

[Leo_Ames]

BaltACD

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/david-schanoes/house-ti-hearing-a-litany-of-embarrassments.html?channel=

While that link is an interesting read and raises many valid points, it's still full of assumptions early on. Take for instance that fatigue didn't enter the equation, since the engineer stated that he wasn't fatigued. How do we get from that statement from the engineer, to a definitive one that such a thing played zero role in the incident? 

And the whole list of what didn't "cause" it is only half the point. The purpose of what's underway as the investigation continues isn't just to pinpoint the direct cause of this event, but how to prevent such circumstances from having tragic consequences the next time if they reoccur. Taking protective measures that would've mitigated or prevented this if it ever reoccurs, is just as important, if not more so, than discovering and addressing why this happened in the first place to stop the situation from the start.

The circumstances, whatever they were, may never happen again on the American passenger network. It's not like passenger trains are speeding into a curve at high peed and derailing with regularity. It's not like a heavy duty catenary tower is always there waiting to open a passenger car like it's a tin can. But preventative measures that had the potential to have helped that night, could be useful in a wide range of such one in a million incidents, to prevent a different perfect storm that will never reach the news due to something that was implemented after this wreck.

So while we may be able to reasonably claim that something wasn't the direct cause of the night's events, who are we to claim that if a fireman had been aboard for an example, that he wouldn't of noticed the locomotive incorrectly accelerating and taken corrective action?

That's an example of something that perhaps needs to be researched in the wake of an accident such as this one. Is the distraction of two men conversing in the cab and perhaps overly relying on the other instead of doing their own job, more than justified by the obvious benefits of having an extra person in the cab?

[Euclid]

Leo_Ames

 

BaltACD

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/david-schanoes/house-ti-hearing-a-litany-of-embarrassments.html?channel=

 

 

While that link is an interesting read and raises many valid points, it's still full of assumptions early on. Take for instance that fatigue didn't enter the equation, since the engineer stated that he wasn't fatigued. How do we get from that statement from the engineer, to a definitive one that such a thing played zero role in the incident? 

 

 

I have wondered about that too.  The NTSB has found that the crew falling asleep caused the Red Oak, IA collision.  Yet they had no direct evidence other than a belief that irregular work shifts had caused sleep disorders. 

If you follow the current scientific thinking about sleep disorders, it concludes that all that is necessary to cause them is working night shift at least some of time.  The disorder can result in spontaneously falling asleep day or night without any sense of being tired or drowsy.  And this can happen even though a person says they are not tired and believes that they had good sleep in the previous sleep cycle. 

So here we have an engineer that says he cannot remember anything during the few miles leading to the derailment.  Then, amazingly, the NTSB concludes that his lack of memory cannot be due to falling asleep because he said he was not tired. 

[Euclid]

Norm48327

 

Euclid

It sounds like the discovery of whether or not the engineer was using his cell phone during the wreck is going to be very difficult.  You would think that it would only take a hour or so.    

 

 

 

 

Have you done that before?

 

No I have not.  Why should that matter?  How much technical expertise do you suppose the NTSB and the FRA could employ to find out when the engineer used his cell phone?  It sounds like they are about to blame the cell phone carrier for not having the data. 

It is interesting to consider that not being able to confirm the engineer’s cell phone use would be one more reason for inward cameras.

[Norm48327]

It may be as simple as the carrier needing time to produce the records.

"The difficult can be done immediately. The impossible takes longer."

[dehusman]

Leo_Ames

Is the distraction of two men conversing in the cab and perhaps overly relying on the other instead of doing their own job, more than justified by the obvious benefits of having an extra person in the cab?

One question that always comes up when discussing how many people there are in the cab is, if the hypothesis is that having two or men in the cab will prevent collisions, overspeeds, and exceeding authority, and having one man in the cab is a relatively recent thing, then there should be significantly fewer incidents prior to going to one man crews or significantly lower rates on class 1 freight railroads, since they all use 2 man crews on through freights.

The song talks about Casey Jones telling his fireman to jump, not about the fireman telling Casey Jones to slow down.

[daveklepper]

My understanding is that three trains had incidences at the same time, two only regarding windshields, and the third being the tragedy.  So how is it possible to conlcude that terrorism was not involved?  Suppose something hit the windshield and as a nervous reaction the engineer banged his head on something.  This could make him loose memeory while instinctively increasing speed to get away from what ever the attack was.  And the application of the emergency brake can also be a second instinctive reaction to feeling going too fast.  Was he already on the curve when the brakes were applied or still on a straight approach?

[Euclid]

As I understand, the cause of the windshield damage on the Amtrak train has not yet been determined.  Gunfire has been ruled out as a cause for that damage.  I have not heard whether gunfire was ruled out for the cause of windshield damage to the other two trains.

My understanding is that the Amtrak train was into the curve when the engineer applied the brakes.

[BaltACD]

Pictures I have seen of the locomotive involved appear to show that the Engineer's side window is in the down position.  Impacts on both the Engineer & Fireman's windshields appear to be from stones or some other thrown projectiles.  Experience from multiple stoning incidents on my carrier is that there are generally a group of miscreants involved, rarely a single individual. 

If the side window was down, it is not beyond the relm of possibility that the engineer was struck directly by a projectile without it having broken the window and was momentarily incapacitated because of the strike. 

Supposition and conjecture only - I have no hard facts.

[MrLynn]

BaltACD

Pictures I have seen of the locomotive involved appear to show that the Engineer's side window is in the down position.  Impacts on both the Engineer & Fireman's windshields appear to be from stones or some other thrown projectiles.  Experience from multiple stoning incidents on my carrier is that there are generally a group of miscreants involved, rarely a single individual. 

If the side window was down, it is not beyond the relm of possibility that the engineer was struck directly by a projectile without it having broken the window and was momentarily incapacitated because of the strike. 

Supposition and conjecture only - I have no hard facts.

Interesting speculation.  I wonder if anyone thought to look inside the cab for a rock.

/Mr Lynn

[dehusman]

Timing is everything.

The SEPTA train hit by a projectile was stopped somewhere around N Phillie.  It was headed in the same direction as the Amtrak train.  That means it was hit between 30th St and N Phillie.  The Amtrak train passed the SEPTA train around N Phillie with no report of a problem and the AMTK engineer awake since he radioed the SEPTA train.    That would seem to indicate that there would be no relation between what happened to the SEPTA train and the AMTK train.

Also there are two hits to the windshields.  If the proposition is another rock came through the side window at the same time that means somebody had to be able to hit the cab of train moving between 50 and 80 mph from 3 different directions simultaneously. 

I still think that sliding across a hundred yards of ballast covered ground and bouncing off several objects would be a more likely cause of window damage than the whole rock thrower theory.

[BaltACD]

dehusman

Also there are two hits to the windshields.  If the proposition is another rock came through the side window at the same time that means somebody had to be able to hit the cab of train moving between 50 and 80 mph from 3 different directions simultaneously.

The experiences reported by the crews that report rock strikes to me is that there are much more frequently GROUPS of people throwing at the same time.  Groups throw multiple missles and is only dependent on the size of the group.

[gardendance]

Norm48327

It may be as simple as the carrier needing time to produce the records.

 

I need only press a few buttons on my phone to have it show call times, and until my stepson changed the password I could also get call times on my carrier's website. What carriers do you know that cannot produce records after several weeks?

I'd like to know what the specific difficulties are that the investigators feel keep them from stating when they think Bostian used the phone. One thing I read was that the carrier's in another time zone. Shouldn't ALL of the carrier's times for ALL of their customer's phone use then consistently be in that same time zone?

daveklepper

My understanding is that three trains had incidences at the same time, two only regarding windshields, and the third being the tragedy. 

My understanding is that a SEPTA engineer got hit when his cab window shattered, I don't remember reading that it was the windshield. As far as I know the SEPTOID did not lose memeory while instinctively increasing speed to get away from what ever the attack was, but instead succesfully stopped the train at North Philly. Do you have info that says it was the windshield, that the engineer lost memory, or that he sped up in order to get to North Philly?

My understanding is also that a southbound Amtrak train got a shattered passenger window, and I assume they mean the outer glass pane, and not the inner plastic pane, since the train continued to DC after stopping at 30th St and checking the damage. What is this 2nd windshield to which you refer?

[wanswheel]

NTSB speaks sparingly about the cell phone. If the engineer was on the phone (I doubt it, but just suppose), they probably would want to interview him again before saying anything to the media.

[Norm48327]

NTSB is not going to be like the mayor of Philly and crucify the engineer without evidence.

[BaltACD]

If the NTSB had reasonable evidence that the engineer was on a cellphone at the time of the incident, they would have announced it by now - the fact that they are 'still reviewing the records' - to me says they want to find him on the phone but can't find any evidence to corroberate that position.