http://www.ebbc.org/rail/fra.html
In my view the article provides valid complaints about the FRA regulations relating to passenger service.
Railroad to Freedom
This is a 2007 article published by the East Bay Bicycle Coalition. It argues FRA standards for car weight are excessive. By forcing up the costs of building and operating American passenger trains it is actually contributing to unsafe conditions. Our high cost trains result in higher trains fares than necessary. This drives people into cars which are "10 to 100 times less safe than trains." We need to move to European standards of lower weight passenger trains.
Similar views have been stated on this forum.
John WR This is a 2007 article published by the East Bay Bicycle Coalition. It argues FRA standards for car weight are excessive. By forcing up the costs of building and operating American passenger trains it is actually contributing to unsafe conditions. Our high cost trains result in higher trains fares than necessary. This drives people into cars which are "10 to 100 times less safe than trains." We need to move to European standards of lower weight passenger trains. Similar views have been stated on this forum.
So the suggestion seems to be that the FRA should do a cost-benefit analysis of its safety regulations. What is the dollar value of human lives saved?
Not FRA construction
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American railroads are built to heavy standards to allow for the survival in case of a collision or derailment. Elsewhere lighter standards are applied and more avoidance systems are installed at less overall expense...train stop, signals, speed governed by signals, etc...to avoid collisions and derailments as a way of assuring survival.
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Passenger coaches in Europe are designed to stay connected and upright if derailed to reduce injuries.
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A human life is valued $8-9M
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/business/economy/17regulation.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
So are coaches here supposedly..
CSSHEGEWISCH John WR This is a 2007 article published by the East Bay Bicycle Coalition. It argues FRA standards for car weight are excessive. By forcing up the costs of building and operating American passenger trains it is actually contributing to unsafe conditions. Our high cost trains result in higher trains fares than necessary. This drives people into cars which are "10 to 100 times less safe than trains." We need to move to European standards of lower weight passenger trains. Similar views have been stated on this forum. So the suggestion seems to be that the FRA should do a cost-benefit analysis of its safety regulations. What is the dollar value of human lives saved?
No, what is proposed is the FRA to do a benefit-benefit analysis. Namely, that the FRA standards result in more people driving automobiles, which has multiples of the accident rate of even light weight trains. No dollar amount ever need to be assigned to a human life.
But I also see the FRA standards as working to prevent the telescoping of train cars. To quote the Secretary of State, "what difference does it make" if persons are crushed in many auto accidents or in one big train accident. Telescoping train car accidents are particularly horrific, maybe even more so than complete-loss-of-life airline accidents. When a jet crashes at sea, there is just a scattering of debris, but in a rail crash, the scene of rescuers going at the twisted wreckage is reminiscent of collapsed buildings in major earthquakes.
For the British Rail accident, it is not clear whether FRA standards would have helped any at all. The one car didn't telescope but it bent in a way that helped save passengers in other cars, and it is not clear that FRA-compliant coaches would have not have had similar loss of life.
With respect to the putative Midwest Regional Rail Initiative, the Talgo 8's were supposed to meet "the standards" with a lightweight train, but even there, there may have been some waiver in place, and that double the cost of the train cars. But it was pointed out that even with the expensive rolling stock, the bulk of the cost was in the capital improvements to the rail lines and not in the coach purchase.
So I guess I have mixed feeling about changing the FRA standards. So who wants to be the person relaxing the rules, some accident happens, and you bear the lives of a train car of crushed people on your conscience?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
I also want to know about "the guy" who in the course of 2 seconds started from walking towards the two trains to running in a full-out sprint towards the two trains.
If it were me, I would have tried to take cover until stuff stopped flying around, but that was one brave worker who knew his duty to the railroad and to the public.
Paul MilenkovicSo I guess I have mixed feeling about changing the FRA standards. So who wants to be the person relaxing the rules, some accident happens, and you bear the lives of a train car of crushed people on your conscience?
800k - million # buff strength likely isn't the only way to get "anti-telescoping" . We had some horrific telescoping commuter wrecks in the 50s-70s where the cars had the requisite buff strength. The FRA just added collision post/anti-climber requirements to the existing stds.
The buff strength spec is "without deformation". Why? I suspect it was easy to measure. The ultimate strength of steel is usually 2X the yield. What, exactly is the goal of the buff strength requirement?
I think the difference between a passenger train hitting a stationary 2200 ton train at 125mph is much different than one hitting a 10,000 ton train at 80 mph. It's just a matter of how many "!" go after "completely awful".
I don't think we need to "relax" the rules as much as we need to revisit and modernize the rules. I don't think adopting Europe's standards and making them the "international" standard would be such a bad thing. And , to think, I used to be "proud" that the US standards are what they are. I was wrong.
With FRA standards. 115 mph into 420 tons. This is the second AEM7. The first one is in the woods in pieces. I believe this is the second Amfleet car on top where most of the 17 died. The first coach is underneath - completely crushed. It was empty.
schlimm Passenger coaches in Europe are designed to stay connected and upright if derailed to reduce injuries.
There's the story of a French TGV that derailed at high speed (maybe on You Tube) but all the coaches stayed in-line and upright with no fatalities. Infact, TGV's have had ZERO fatalities in operation over 30 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_accidentsCompare with the Bourbonais Amtrak crash, with the supposedly safer Superliners that have the FRA standards. Cars twisted, almost all derailed, etc. 11 dead, 122 injured.
http://alongtherails.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/the-wreck-of-the-city-of-new-orleans-at-bourbonnais/
Although the NTSB placed the entire blame on the truck driver, a thorough investigation by the Illinois State Police found that the train detection system, called the Track Circuit, had failed to detect the fast-moving (79 MPH) Amtrak train at the beginning of the Approach Circuit and turn on the flashing lights and gates for the federally-required 20 seconds. A witness saw the late activation and the gates coming down just as the front of the locomotive reached the crossing. That conclusion was confirmed by the Chief Engineer for the company that manufactured the Track Circuit equipment, Harmon Industries.
PNWRMNM [ I think there is room for discussion, but those advocating lighter equipment need to recognize that there is a safety cost associated with the weaker equipment that will be the result of lighter equipment. Mac McCulloch
[
Yes there is need for safety and room for discussion...and that in advocating lighter equipment there must be more attention paid to avoidance systems in signaling, GPS, multi tracking, separation of traffic and types of traffic, etc. Our insurance companies and our lawyers all are against us on this.
henry6 PNWRMNM [ I think there is room for discussion, but those advocating lighter equipment need to recognize that there is a safety cost associated with the weaker equipment that will be the result of lighter equipment. Mac McCulloch Yes there is need for safety and room for discussion...and that in advocating lighter equipment there must be more attention paid to avoidance systems in signaling, GPS, multi tracking, separation of traffic and types of traffic, etc. Our insurance companies and our lawyers all are against us on this.
The ultimate reality is that no matter how high tech, sophisticated and 'fail proof' ANY system made by man is - at some point in time it will fail. It is made, updated, maintained and operated by man, and man is fallible. You can have all the avoidance systems in the world and at some set of circumstances, something that no one had ever thought as being possible we will have failure and catastrophic impacts.
Why doe a passenger train need to survive a collision. Cars do not have this requirement and buses do not have that requirement. Don't give me it could never happen excuse it can and does happen. Buses could in theory crash into trucks. Planes do occasionally collide with each other and do some times fall to ground.
Can't deny that Balt. But you can over do the gauging to the point that it becomes cumbersome to the point of useless or cost prohibitive. So you've got to draw the line of probability someplace. The US draws it with weights and elsewhere they use avoidance and light weight. The question that has to be addressed in this country is what do we want? Fast, economical, frequent light weight trains or no trains because they weigh too much to be frequent and economical? That is if the safety factor is equal.
henry6 Can't deny that Balt. But you can over do the gauging to the point that it becomes cumbersome to the point of useless or cost prohibitive. So you've got to draw the line of probability someplace. The US draws it with weights and elsewhere they use avoidance and light weight. The question that has to be addressed in this country is what do we want? Fast, economical, frequent light weight trains or no trains because they weigh too much to be frequent and economical? That is if the safety factor is equal.
IF - the US ever gets a High Speed network, where ONLY the high speed trains occupy the tracks of the network then the requirements can be 'right sized' to the only vehicles that will be operating on those tracks. Even then, the spectre of the DB ICE accident at Eschede Germany in 1998 comes into view.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster
As it stands in the present, US passenger railroad equipment operates on tracks that are shared with freight carriers and freight equipment - even on the NEC, freight trains are operated and can come in collision with passenger trains that are operated on the NEC. Where pasenger operates on the tracks of freight carriers the exposure to collision with freight equipment is even higher.
Face facts, henry. the freight rail folks don't want any passenger trains on the same tracks. BaltACD seems to think passenger cars should be built like tanks, even though the Superliners are heavy, look what happened at Boubonais. And consider all the other US fatal crashes, that in a country with a limited passenger service by comparison. 1987 Chase MD,1995 Palo Verde; 2005 Glendale Metrolink; 2008 Chatsworth Metrolink; among others. The Eschede disaster was bad, but 15 years ago and improvements were made. 30 years of TGV's in France, a number of accidents, ZERO fatalities. As to the NEC, it might be best to make that exclusively passenger and let freight move on parallel lines .
Never debated those facts...in fact alluded to them on several occasions. But it doesn't make it right, what they are thinking when it comes to lines with only passenger services and proper train controls through signaling and computers...
What we need to keep in sight is the fact that private automobiles are by far the most dangerous form of transportation. To the extent that we can get people to move from private automobiles to anything else we are increasing their safety tremendously. What we must not do is to provide further incentives to use private automobile because such incentives contribute to their high rate of injuries and deaths.
John WR What we need to keep in sight is the fact that private automobiles are by far the most dangerous form of transportation. To the extent that we can get people to move from private automobiles to anything else we are increasing their safety tremendously. What we must not do is to provide further incentives to use private automobile because such incentives contribute to their high rate of injuries and deaths.
Reducing risk through modal shift is always a good but is not mutually exclusive with reducing risk within a mode - at least FRA doesn't think so.
PTC is a case in point. NS will spend ~$2B in capital. $830M is to keep ROW up to snuff. $420M is to keep loco and car fleet up to snuff. Of the remaining $750M, about a third is for PTC. Now, NS has a lot of projects that are fighting for capital - and the level of overall capital spending is dictated almost entirely by the railroad's financial performance. What's going for PTC this year turfed out quite a few projects that could have helped improve service, reduce costs and shift traffic from highway to rail faster. They have been pushed back several years while PTC implementation is going on.
oltmanndReducing risk through modal shift is always a good but is not mutually exclusive with reducing risk within a mode - at least FRA doesn't think so.
FRA--the Federal Railroad Administration. The name says it all. When it comes to highway safety it just isn't the FRA's job.
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