function of NTSB

[Anonymous]

It seems that every day, while reading the train wire, there's a derailment of some type. does the NTSB investigate all these,or just the ones where there's loss of life????? thanks EASTER

[mudchicken]

(1) Railroad aacidents that result in at least one fatality and/or major property damage
(2) Railroad accidents/derailments of a repetative nature or cause

http://www.ntsb.gov/Abt_NTSB/history.htm

[RudyRockvilleMD]

By law the NTSB does not have to investigate all land transportation accidents, however, they must investigate all aircraft accidents.

I know of two cases where the NTSB investigated railroad accidents where no death occurred, and the surrounding property damage was not that significant. The NTSB investigated the collision of two streetcars in a transit museum near me where there were only minor injuries. Another time it investigated the scalding of an engineer on a Gettysburg Railroad steam powered dinner train after the crown sheet on the locomotive failed; in this latter case the injury was very serious.

[Overmod]

mudchicken might add one very significant category to 'mandatory' NTSB investigations: any accident to a passenger train. See 49 CFR 1132 (a) (C). I think this would explain the two cases mentioned above.

As an interesting side note with reference to an earlier forum thread regarding accidents -- note that the regulations have been written so that confidentiality of information from locomotive event recorders is given the same standing as that from aircraft cockpit recorders with regard to information disclosure.