Secretary Mineta Unveils National Rail Safety Action Plan

[Anonymous]

Monday, May 16, 2005

A new plan to improve safety along the nation's railroads was
unveiled today by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta
during a visit to Columbia, S.C. The plan will help prevent train
accidents caused by human error, improve the safety of hazmat
shipments, minimize the dangers of crew fatigue, deploy state-of-the-
art technologies to detect track defects, and focus inspectors on
safety trouble spots.

Secretary Mineta today outlined the new National Rail Safety Action
Plan, which represents the Department of Transportation's aggressive
new approach to improving safety throughout the railroad industry.
The plan will target the most frequent, highest-risk causes of
accidents, focus federal oversight and inspection resources, and
accelerate research into new technologies that can vastly improve
rail safety.

"The aggressive and comprehensive plan I am unveiling today will
bolster safety along America's rails and help prevent the tragic and
costly rail accidents that still plague the nation's railroad
network. This step-by-step action plan targets the fundamental
factors that cause rail accidents," Secretary Mineta said.

One of the primary safety issues addressed in the plan is human
error, the largest single factor accounting for 38 percent of all
accidents over the last five years. Preliminary findings from the
tragic accident in Graniteville this January point to human error as
the cause – the failure of a train crew to properly line a switch
back to the mainline track.

Under the plan, Secretary Mineta, with guidance from some of the
nation's top rail safety advisors, is seeking to develop a new
federal rule to address human factor accidents. He said the
Department is also accelerating research into the role fatigue plays
in accidents to help railroads set better crew schedules.

The Secretary also announced the implementation of a new National
Inspection Plan for deploying inspectors and resources to safety hot
spots before accidents occur. And as part of that reinvigorated
inspection effort, the Federal Railroad Administration is investing
in special high-tech rail cars that automatically inspect tracks
integrity as they roll along the rails.

The safe transport of hazardous materials by rail is also a major
focus of the action plan. In response to FRA's call to action, the
railroad industry will now provide local emergency responders a
ranked listing of the top 25 hazardous materials transported through
their community. And by July, Mineta said, the FRA will launch a new
pilot program providing emergency responders with real-time
information via secure website about the hazardous materials involved
in train accidents.

Additionally, to help alleviate risk in so-called "dark territory" –
or railroad lines without signal systems, the Department is
investigating new devices to detect if switches are in the correct
position, and low-cost circuits to detect broken rails. FRA is also
beginning field-tests on new technology that automatically controls
train movements and speed, including bringing a train to a stop.

"While the railroad industry's overall safety record has improved
over the last decade, very serious accidents continue to occur.
Growth in both freight and vehicle traffic has created new
opportunities and new challenges in the form of more trains on our
tracks than ever before. But safety must remain the core principle
that guides operations on our nation's rail system," Secretary Mineta
said.

“We’ve got to stay focused on safety to keep our trains moving,” he said.

http://www.fra.dot.gov/us/press-releases/60

http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/Safety/action_plan_final_051605.pdf

Dave

[daveklepper]

Well, as long as his idiodic plan to separate right of way from operations in the NE Corridor doesn't get implemented, we actually may see improvement!

[AntonioFP45]

All this and yet Class 1s are trying to get "Single Crew Member" inside of locomotives passed through. Even if within certain districts, a train with two or 3 people inside of the locomotive is, in my opinion, safer than with just one person.

[oltmannd]

If this brings some Fed money to the table for R&D and demo projects - then it is a good thing. These are the kind of thing no single RR can afford to do.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

"After all is said and done, a whole lot more is said than done."

There's a long distance from the Secretary's pontifications about safety to the formulation and implementation of an actual plan. Except for the point about unsignaled lines, he isn't stating anything that isn't being tested or implemented already.