After two previous fatal passenger rail accidents blamed on excess speed since 2015, safety experts Tuesday were asking why the Amtrak train that crashed in Washington state did not have the latest automated train control system.
The train was traveling 80 mph in a 30 mph zone Monday on the first day operating on a new $181 million segment of track, causing trains cars to spill onto the busy I-5 freeway and killing three passengers, according to preliminary findings by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The 14.5-mile new track, developed at a cost of $181 million by the government agency Sound Transit, was not equipped with a positive train control system that could have automatically applied the brakes in the reduced speed zone.
The agency is working to install the complex electronic system, having outfitted the majority of the equipment on its tracks and trains, but does not expect it to be operational until the second quarter of 2018, said spokesman Geoff Patrick.
When everything else goes wrong, the positive train control is supposed to intervene. The lack of the control system may have played a key role in the accident, just as it contributed to eight deaths in an Amtrak accident in 2015 and a single fatality in a New Jersey Transit crash in 2016.
"Why they didn't have positive train control is a question in my mind," said Michael McGinley, a railroad safety expert and track engineer. "Why wouldn't they build a new system with the latest technology."
The simple answer is that U.S. railroads and their government regulators have been slow to implement the tricky system, leaving the majority of trains unprotected. McGinley noted that the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Communications Commission, among other federal agencies, took more than a year to coordinate the rules.
Much of the freight railroad industry fought the regulations, arguing it was not economical. And when the companies were finally ordered to adopt the technology, suppliers were backed up to design and produce the custom systems.
"I think it should make people very angry," Keith Millhouse, the former board chairman for Southern California's Metrolink commuter rail system, said of the lack of positive train control. Metrolink installed positive train control after the 2008 Chatsworth train disaster, which was caused by a texting Metrolink engineer.
Positive train control uses computer mapping and satellite positioning to automatically slow down trains when they are approaching curves too quickly or headed to collide with another train.
Congress had originally given the nation's rail services until 2015 to finish installing positive train control systems on their rail lines. But that deadline was extended until the end of 2018 as rail officials complained about the technical challenges of implementing the safeguards.
And for positive train control advocates such as Millhouse, that delay has been deadly.
"It was clear that train could not handle that curve going 80 miles an hour," Millhouse said of Monday's Amtrak crash. "Given the fact positive train control was mandated in the Rail Safety Act of 2008, the delays in getting it implemented around the country are really inexcusable, and it's cost people their lives."
Patrick, the Sound Transit spokesman, said installation of the positive train control was not behind schedule and that the agency always intended to have it operational some months after the service began. He noted that other segments of the Amtrak rail system between Seattle and Portland also do not have operational systems.
NTSB officials gathered the speed data from the rear engine of the 14-car train, which appears to be the only car that did not derail on a bridge over Interstate 5 about 40 miles south of Seattle, officials said. About five crew members and 80 passengers were on board.
However, it's "too early to tell" why the train was traveling so fast in a slow zone, NTSB member Bella Dinh-Zarr said at a Monday night news conference, as federal investigators began arriving at the scene of the crash.
She did not say whether investigators believed speed was the cause of the derailment and added that the train crew has not been interviewed yet.
"We will be looking at all the different areas of this accident" to look for possible factors leading to the crash, Dinh-Zarr said. "We don't have a great deal of information to report."
Typically, train engineers are supplied with "employee timetables" that include speed limits on every inch of the track they will go over.
About one mile before a speed restricted curve, signs are posted notifying the engineer. And engineers are required to be "territory qualified" and familiar with their route, particularly on an inaugural journey like the one the Amtrak was taking, said McGinley, a railroad safety expert and track engineer.
Monday's crash seems to share some similarities with a 2015 Amtrak crash in Philadelphia, which derailed after a distracted engineer entered a curve too quickly. At a 2016 meeting announcing the board's findings of the Philadelphia crash's causes, NTSB Chairman Christopher A. Hart said positive train control would have stopped "this entirely preventable tragedy."
"Unless positive train control is implemented soon, I'm very concerned that we're going to be back in this room again, hearing investigators detail how technology that we have recommended for more than 45 years could have prevented yet another fatal rail accident," Hart said at the May 17, 2016, meeting.
The Amtrak Cascades Train 501 left Seattle at 6 a.m. and headed to Portland, Ore., about an hour after its crew members started their shifts, according to federal investigators.
For the first time, its route included a new 14.5-mile bypass designed to help passenger trains avoid cargo trains and reach speeds up to 79 mph.
The Washington State Department of Transportation said the tracks, had undergone weeks of inspection and testing before opening to paying passengers Monday.
The train flew off the rails where the tracks crossed a bridge over Interstate 5, sending train cars filled with passengers tumbling toward rush-hour traffic. Five autos and two semi trucks were struck, injuring some of the drivers. No motorists were killed.
The three dead on the train included two rail aficionados, Zack Willhoite and Jim Hamre, who were on board for the inaugural journey.
Willhoite worked as an IT customer service support specialist for Pierce Transit, a Pierce County transit agency.
"Behind the scenes he was a writer and advocate for better transit for all," tweeted Pierce Transit board member Chris Karnes, a crash survivor, who said Willhoite had also helped the board with IT issues. "He will be missed."
Willhoite was also mourned in a Facebook group for supporters of a vintage local transit bus known as the "374."
"Zack supported the preservation of 374 and his transit archives and documentation of Tacoma Transit and Pierce County Transit vehicles is probably more extensive than anyone in the Pacific Northwest region," wrote one of the group's moderators, Kevin R. Cartwright, who posted a photo of Willhoite sitting in the bus. "We lost an angel today, and we will never forget Zack's contributions to our hobby."
Hamre was a board member for the Rail Passengers Association, a transit advocacy group, and he formerly worked at the Washington State Department of Transportation.
"Jim combined personability and kindness, and paired it with an intricate and detailed knowledge of transit policy and technical insight," the association said in a statement. "This made him an extremely powerful advocate and an inspiration for others." Willhoite was also a member of the passengers' association.
Tuesday was expected to be the first full day on the scene for NTSB investigators. Dinh-Zarr, the board member, said investigators are often on scene for seven to 10 days. It's common for reports issuing probable-cause findings for the reasons for crashes to take a year or longer.
"Our mission is not just to understand what happened, but why it happened, and to recommend changes so we can prevent another tragedy from happening again," Dinh-Zarr said, noting that the NTSB has recommended the implementation of positive train control for years.
Millhouse, the former Metrolink chair, urged swifter action.
"The NTSB report will be very exhaustive but will take a year or 18 months to come out," Millhouse said. "In the interim, the people of Washington and Oregon just can't sit back and cross their fingers and hope nothing happens again. They have to be proactive now and take measures with their system."
