It is December 2017 and locals are mourning a tragedy. In Tacoma they should be happy,
they had just received a new train service after all.
But instead the new Amtrak passenger offering has created the wrong type of disruption to
local travel plans in the form of destruction and death.
The accident would highlight a failure in The fundamentals of operating a railway and
show how far behind Amtrak was in train protection compared to their contemporaries around the
world.
My name is John and today we are looking at the 2017 Washington train crash. Welcome to
the plainly difficult channel.
Background
Our story starts in 1971 and the commencement of a new passenger rail corridor, named Amtrak
Cascades, the route takes 467-miles (752 km) from Vancouver, British Columbia, through
Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon to Eugene, Oregon.
Parts of the route date back even further, as far as the railways' early days, but today
we are just going to focus on one small section of this vast route, the The Point Defiance
Line.
This route follows the coastline of the puget sound between the cities of Tacoma and DuPont,
it was opened in 1914, as a bypass to the prairie lines direct but difficult to drive
2.2% incline over 2.2 miles.
The prairie line between yelm and DuPont was abandoned due to low traffic numbers in 1984.
The point defiance line had to play to two needs, both passenger and freight services.
With passengers demanding higher service frequency and freight demanding greater loading gauges
to allow larger cargo the two requirements were at odds with one another.
As such two tunnels on the line were converted from double track to single track to allow
freight services to carry Boeing aircraft parts.
As such this severely hampered passenger service frequency, on top of that the line was susceptible
to lane slides.
Thus an alternative to what was once an alternative was needed.
This brought in 1992, with the Washington State Department of Transportation began searching
for a new route, and their gaze fell upon the old prairie line to the north and the
American lake branch to the south.
A new bypass line was beginning to be conceived for passenger services to avoid the coastal
route.
WSDOT published its plan for the Amtrak cascades service, it set out all the work required
to reinstate the bypass this would be a pretty big project.
It would involve new track signaling at grade crossings and a new bridge and straightened
curve over the I5 near the Nisqually River.
the bridge and straightened curve would have cost $230 million, this part of the project
was shelved because of cost concerns after all the whole project only had $183 million
to play with.
And thus the tight curve remained, but with the addition of a permanent speed reduction,
the line had a maximum permissible speed of 79mph, which was reduced to 30mph for the
curve near the Nisqually River.
To give advance warning to the driver yellow and black boards are placed 2 miles from the
speed restriction.
The project began in 2010 and was mainly completed in 2017, apart from one big system, Positive
train control, which will prove to be a fatal shortcoming.
Amtrak wanted to get the cascades service running on the new route as soon as possible,
but it had to train its engineers (drivers) and conductors on the route.
Training for drivers over the route would involve the use of familiar locomotives as
well as a new locomotive named the charger; it was first unveiled to the public in 2016
and had made its way to the cascades services in mid 2017.
This personally seems like information overload as route learning and traction learning should
be completed separately in order to familiarize the driver with both properly.
When the Charger Locomotive first appeared on the cascades roster, drivers were initially
trained on the locomotive in group sessions, This involved classroom time, as well as being
shown the operating compartment and familiarization with the display screens and controls.
Vitally however these sessions did not involve any operating time, and observation rides
were only occasionally conducted on the charger. Training for the new route included a number
of observation rides, then making two northbound and one southbound trips while driving the
train under supervision of a road foreman. During risk assessing the route, the tight
curve near the nisqually river was highlighted as a key point of interest in the line's characteristics.
Drivers during their training are meant to learn braking points for stations and speed
restrictions, and the new route was no different, some would use the Mile Point signs to help
identify their location. A written exam on the physical characteristics
of the territory which included a question about the curve at MP 19.8 was included in
the training for drivers, but crucially it didn't question potential landmarks that could
be used to keep situational awareness during a trip.
Training was deemed adequate by Amtrak but from an outsiders point of view 3 trips in
total over the route, and not multiple trips in varying times of day seems a little lackluster.
The training outlined here was exactly what one driver would undertake before becoming
the inaugural engineer on the first passenger service on the new route.
The Disaster* It is the morning of December 18, 2017 and
the engineer of train 501, is receiving a call from Amtrak’s designated on-the-job
trainer. during the call the two talk about the route
and the tight curve at mile point 19.86. You see, today is an important day, it marks
the first passenger services over the new line. the driver isn't alone in the cab for
this run, he is accompanied today by a qualifying conductor, who is there to learn the route.
The train consists of the new charger locomotive, 12 carriages and a rear locomotive.
The engineer had worked for Amtrak since May 17, 2004 initially as a conductor for several
years, eventually becoming a certified engineer on August 26, 2013,working mainly out of Portland.
He was experienced and by all reports was a safe and conscientious driver.
Train 501 departs the Holgate Street facility at 6:09 a.m. and made its short journey to
the first stop this morning at King Street Station; the train is running 10 minutes late,
but nothing to worry about. The train continued on to Tacoma dome station,
in doing so entering the Point Defiance Bypass route.
Tthe engineer and qualifying conductor spoke infrequently about the route characteristics
and general work topics, due to the time of day and year it was still dark outside, as
train 501 passed the points for the dupont yard the engineer called out his location.
At 7:32:16 a.m., the train went past the advance speed restriction sign at MP 17.8, about 2
miles before the curve, the engineer intended to apply the brakes at the sign indicating
control point (CP) 188 roughly 1 mile before the curve and near a signal box.
As the train approached the controlling signal the headlights washed out the sign, and the
engineer missed his breaking point. At 7:33:06 a.mThe sign for MP 19 went past,
this was ½ a mile from the curve, still no braking application was made.
Suddenly an overspeed alarm started to sound, the engineer unfamiliar with the charger locomotive,
didn't react to warnings, he saw the signal at MP 19.8 and initially thought that they
were at CP 188, but it was too late. Aboard were five Amtrak employees, a technician
from train manufacturer Talgo, and 77 passengers. At 7:33:34 a.mThe concrete structural walls
came into view on both sides of the track leading to the 30 mph restriction, the train
was traveling at 83mph, realising the mistake the engineer was recorded on the cab recorder
saying “we’re dead”. Seconds later At 78mph train 501 hit the curve
over 2 times the maximum permissible speed, the engineer didn’t make any emergency brake
application. It was now 7:34 a.m The lead charger locomotive
and seven coaches behind derailed, the locomotive and several coaches slammed down the embankment
beyond the curve blocking the southbound lanes of I-5.
The lead locomotive spilled 350 US gal (1,300 L) of fuel out onto the I5, the only part
of the train that remained on the track was the rear locomotive.
Eight road vehicles were damaged by the train crashing down injuring 8 of the 10 people
using the i5, many passengers were able to escape the wrecked train but some were severely
injured. At 0736 the first 911 calls came in and within
4 minutes the first emergency responders in the form of dupont police arrived to assist.
Local emergency services were quick to attend the scene to shut the I5 and attend to the
wounded, the most severely injured were sent to multiple hospitals in the region.
Sadly 3 onboard the service were killed in the accident, all were passengers and were
traveling on the train to celebrate the new route.
Surprisingly the engineer and qualifying conductor survived the crash, this would prove vital
in the later NTSB investigation. All rail services were diverted along the
old route, and all services along the point defiance diversion were canceled until the
line was fully protected by positive train control which would prove to take a good few
years. On the 20th december 2 southbound lanes of
the i5 were reopened after some of the wreckage was removed.
In total the destruction and clean up would cost in excess of 40$million, which would
involve writing off train 501. Now with such a dramatic crash on a new route
with a new locomotive with an experienced engineer, how was the train driven 78mph around
a 30mph curve, well the ntsb would have a go at finding out.
The investigation. Well luckily having the engineer not dead
meant they had some first hand information to get, needless to say he was interviewed,
and it was found that he was not distracted during the drive, however he was clearly not
familiar enough with the line. He had passed all the assessments, which along
with his previously good driving record would hint that maybe the training wasn't up to
scratch. But on the railway you don't want to rely
on one point of failure in this case the engineer, ideally there would be a system in place to
mitigate this and there was positive train control, but it hadnt been fully installed
on the route. In the NTSB’s Final report they summarized
the root cause of the crash: “The National Transportation Safety Board
determines that the probable cause of the Amtrak 501 derailment was Central Puget Sound
Regional Transit Authority's failure to provide an effective mitigation for the hazardous
curve without positive train control in place, which allowed the Amtrak engineer to enter
the 30-mph curve at too high of a speed due to his inadequate training on the territory
and inadequate training on the newer equipment. Contributing to the accident was the Washington
State Department of Transportation's decision to start revenue service without being assured
that safety certification and verification had been completed to the level determined
in the preliminary hazard assessment.” Pretty damming.
Now the root cause was the driver not having the correct route knowledge.
Route knowledge is vital irrespective if it’s a tram freight train, tube train or suburban
train the knowledge of the road is absolutely vital in order to operate a train safely.
Most train drivers know their routes they drive intimately. They know every Lineside
feature, landmark, signal, and sign they pass. as such they even know when such things are
missing such as a sign being graffitied or a signal being taken out of use.
Clearly the driver hadn’t received the proper training to know the route he was driving
and as such was the main cause of the disaster.
Also the driver was unfamiliar with the locomotive they were Operating. railway rolling stock
is not the easiest to understand if you’re not familiar with it, in comparison to say
my OPZ for example, which is known to have a steep learning curve it is still designed
with the user in mind as such different colours light up for different operations and what
buttons are pressed.
However train cabs that are often devoid of any mod cons or user benefits, they are much
more utilitarian and as such you need to be trained on the proper operation and the different
types of warnings lights and sounds that can be given to you in certain situations.
Again the lack of training caused this unfamiliarity with this particular type of rolling stock
which confused the driver at a vitally important time.
It felt like it was a bit of a rush job trying to get this new service running on this previously
freight-only bit of track and it was the victims which paid the price.
Personally though the engineer not making any emergency brake application is a little
concerning, at least in the UK you are taught if you lose situational awareness then you
throw those brakes on to readjust and regain your bearings.
Another issue is the size of the speed restriction warning board especially when compared to
a Morpeth board or officially warning indicator, the one on the point defiance bypass seems
a little well little.
The line today is back in use, after extensive testing services resumed on November 18, 2021.
Sorry for my voice sounding not too great today, I’m in the throes of covid, I’m
4 days in so far and this is the first time I’ve been able to look at a computer screen
without my brain melting! All videos on the channel are creative commons
Attribution-ShareAlike. Plainly difficult videos are produced by me
John, in a wet and windy suburban Southeast corner of London, uk.
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