George Bibel - Train Wreck: The Forensics of Rail Disasters

TRAIN WRECK

TRAIN WRECK

The
FORENSICS of
RAIL DISASTERS

GEORGE BIBEL

2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press

All rights reserved. Published 2012

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The Johns Hopkins University Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bibel, G. D. (George D.)

Train wreck : the forensics of rail disasters / George Bibel.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4214-0590-2 (alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4214-0652-7 (electronic) ISBN 1-4214-0590-3 (alk. paper) ISBN 1-4214-0652-7 (electronic)

1. Railroad accidentsInvestigation. I. Title.

HE1779.B535 2012

363.12265dc23 2011048389

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

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The Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post-consumer waste, whenever possible.

To my lovely bride, Mary Pat,
who waited patiently for this trains caboose

I would like to acknowledge help from Mark Aldrich. His book, Death Rode the Rails: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 18281965, was an important historical reference, as were his many emails. I would also like to acknowledge Larry Schlosser for patiently explaining railroad operations and Richeldis Nelson and Ben Waldera for extensive editing.

TRAIN WRECK

This book addresses three simple questions: why trains crash, what happens when they do, and what safety improvements have been made in response to accidents. These questions are addressed by discussing numerous examples of train wrecks that are further explained using high school science. Selected accidents have an interesting story and a well-documented explanation of the underlying science. This is a train wreck book that teaches science (or a science book that tells train wreck stories).

Although not a book about high-speed trains, the accidents and safety principles developed are fundamental to the safe operations of all trains. The current safety rules (often based on tragedy) exist for a reason and are better understood with historical and scientific explanations.

BEFORE LAUNCHING INTO AN ENTIRE BOOK about how trains crash, I should start with an apology to the entire industry and first explain how trains mostly do not crash. An average freight train replaces 280 trucks and the potential human error associated with 280 drivers.with rubber tires, and statistics bear this out. Extensive safety systems continue to evolve, and, unlike most car drivers, accident-prone railroaders are fired.

Even when the statistics were grim, the alternatives were far worse. Just as riding a train is safer than driving a car today, a train ride was always safer than the competition. In 1867 (with far fewer people and vehicles), about four pedestrians were killed per week in New York City, somewhat fewer than today. By one estimate, stage coaches were 60 times more dangerous than riding a train in the nineteenth century.

Today a fatality occurs in autos about every 100 million passenger miles. Over a recent 5-year period, passengers in trains were 19 times safer. In fact, passenger train fatalities are so rare that one bad accident alters the statistics. Eliminating the single worst U.S. passenger train accident in the twenty-first century (see ), passengers in trains are 45 times safer than those in cars.

Up until the last generation or so, trains have been safer than planes. The statistics could be reinterpreted; 94% of all commercial plane accidents occur during take-off, climb, approach, and landing. Flight accidents per mile of those phases of flight would suggest different conclusions about the safety of trains versus planes.

The history of railroading and of railroad safety has been dominated by major economic trends. The first federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), was created in 1887 to police railroad shipping rates. At that time the railroads were rich, powerful, and potentially monopolistic. Since their peak in 1920, the railroads have been in massive decline. In 1920, passenger trains carried more than 47 billion passenger miles and 75% of all intercity freight. After the boom of World War II, the 1950s through the 1970s was a particularly difficult period for the railroad industry. By 1980, the population had nearly doubled, yet passenger traffic had declined by 85%. And the railroads share of intercity freight traffic had declined from 75% to 37% (1920 versus 1980).

It wasnt just the obvious competition from cars, trucks, and planes. The use of coal, which once heated almost every building, including In one of the ironies of railroading, the railroads pay real estate taxes on their track to subsidize highways, airports, and river-dredging.

According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, poor labor productivity also played a role in the decline of the railroads. For example, the positions of fireman (to tend the boiler in a steam locomotive) and telegraph operator existed long after both had become obsolete. Long after steam locomotives disappeared in the mid-1950s, legal wrangling about the firemans position made it to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1963 and 1968.

Quoting the U.S. Department of Transportation in 1978, The current system of railroad regulations reflects a series of uncoordinated actions The result is a hodgepodge of inconsistent and often anachronistic regulations that no longer correspond to the economic conditions of the railroads, the nature of intermodal competition, or the often conflicting needs of shippers, consumers and taxpayers. Population shifts to the west and south made tracks in the Midwest and along the East Coast obsolete. Track abandonment and/or rate change proceedings could take years; meanwhile, that route was forced to operate at a loss.

In 1976, 11 of 36 Class I railroads were earning a negative rate of return and 3 were bankrupt. The overall return on investment for all railroad companies was about 2%. With billions of dollars of deferred maintenance, the railroads could not afford to keep their track and equipment in good repair. In the late 1970s, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) created a new accident category, the standing derailment, for cars that derailed while standing still.

In 1971, Amtrak was formed and operated by the federal government to take over bankrupt intercity rail traffic. Today Amtrak remains highly subsidized except for the successful fast trains on the densely populated Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C., and Boston. The remaining regional and commuter passenger trains have become subsidized entities owned by local governments.

Freight railroads wanted the unregulated freedom to upgrade routes to compete, negotiate contracts in secret, and above all set prices to what the market would bear. Intermodal freight traffic was an innovation of the 1970s. To reduce handling, damage, and costs, the same container was used on ships, barges, trains, and trucks. Just as ships needed to reconfigure for container transport (entire fleets became obsolete), so did the railroads. Updating a train route for increased speed and tonnage involves upgrading hundreds of miles of track, roadbed, bridges, and signals. The railroads could not justify the expenditure until they negotiated long-term contractsstill banned per government regulations in 1980.