NPR is reporting that the curve that Amtrak 501 derailed on was to have been straightened out, but the money to do that was taken out of the budget for the track upgrade. My questions;
- Is it true?
- Who made this decision and why?
That would be a joint call between Sound Transit, Washington DOT and Tacoma Rail.
Does not exonerate anyone on the operating side that screwed up. Looks/ sounds like the clueless news media is looking for a scapegoat to sensationalize a tragic event.
Being that federal $$$ was used to get the project to this point, they are dreaming if they get to waste additional federal $$$ to hurry up and fix a perceived flaw (not really) after this. Time to overhaul the process first.
The answer to #2 is always money, or lack of it. Who is not as important as they will fall back on the money excuse. Now if you want to ask, “what unnecessary thing(s) did they spend the available funding on, except PTC or replacing this bridge”, you’d have a good investigation.
Whenever money is involved in any project, and what project doesn’t involve money, there will always be factions that contend that money could have been better spent on some other aspect of the project than what it actually got spent on.
It would be highly interesting to see any ‘upgrade’ that would eliminate a significant speed restriction at that point: you’re looking at substantial skew bridges with very little possibility of intermediate piers to support them. That would largely be true for any ‘lower’ speed improvement, say to 40 or 50mph; you’d still have the running restriction and the implicit danger, and you’d have most of the additional incremental cost for bridge and line relocation.
So I would say that someone with a very, shall we say ‘relaxed’ view of how stimulus funds are allocated and spent made that pronouncement. It certainly seems like a much better investment after the accident … but again, only if built to near-“79mph” standard. For a project that already cut corners with installing PTC to ‘get the line open’ by the end of the fiscal year, I think the bang for the buck in that line relocation would be relatively small.
Thomas A. White(TAW), a former Dispatcher on various railroads, former Chief Dispatcher on BN, and a consultant to WSDOT on the project said that the money was never available unless something else was eliminated. The push to get the line operating on December 18th was due to the Contractor promising to have PTC ready by that date. The Contractor failed, partly due to the failure of the contractor, and partly due to late delivery by the manufacturers of the Electronic components. Obviously they should have pulled an Elon Musk, and delayed the rollout, even though virtually all of the Heavy-rail Transit Systems are operating without operational PTC. No freight railroad in the US has PTC in full operational mode, though many subdivisions, particularly on BNSF, are being operated in Test Mode, but with system failures occuring at an unexceptable rate, to consider that the system meets the mandate and for the FRA to sign off on the system.
I should add that the curve in question is just over 8 degrees and lies at the foot of 4 miles of a 1.4% descending grade southbound( the direction Train #501 was traveling). Another factor in why the curve had minimal superelevation was that very heavy and slow freight trains carrying armored vehicles including M1 Abrams tanks heading to Joint Base Lewis-McChord need to traverse the trackage several times per year.
Heavy freights ‘several times a year’ should not be a consideration on superelevation. Several times daily is a valid consideration.
8 degree curve + 6" max elevation + 100 ton flats w/ almost centerbound truck + “dry” rail = bedlam.
(the minute you lubricate it, BIG crocodile tears from the hoggers and their supervisors [especially on a grade] - put the spooge applicators on the locomotives and mechanical won’t maintain them or turns them off under threat of the local operating supervision.)
Trainload of M1A2 Abrams tanks weighing 72 tons each loaded two to a 12 wheel Flatcar is not an ordinary heavy freight. That is also the reason they quickly discarded the idea of a longer bridge. The only reasonable options were to slew the tracks very wide to the right with a large land acquisition and heavy earthworks, or reroute I-5.
Also it was not possible to route the Military trains via another route as there aren’t any other routes.
IIRC, the section between the overpass and the junction with the current BNSF mainline is also has near a 30mph speed limit. If that is true upgrading the overpass is moot.
Just roughly looking on Google Earth and doing some back of the envelope computations (envelope being Excel) it appears that the “straightening” could ease both curves to slightly under 3 degrees with about .6-.7 miles of “new” alignment. Again, based on what Google Earth says about elevations, the roadbed is about 30 feet above I-5, meaning a lot of fill would be required on the new alignment. Also, two new bridges would have to be constructed with
beaulieu on Friday, December 22, 2017 2:39 PM reference your post …… question …… noted in your post was the following ………No freight railroad in the US has PTC in full operational mode, though many subdivisions, particularly on BNSF, are being operated in Test Mode, but with system failures occuring at an unexceptable rate, to consider that the system meets the mandate and for the FRA to sign off on the system. …….my comment: Somebody somewhere commented (seemed as though an active BNSF crewmember) that the PTC system he was working under was great and sure was a good thing. QUESTION: Does your source of reporting problems indicate they are all over the system? I am not surprised that there are problems. This is darn complicated and anything that complex can easily be a nightmare. Nice idea alright, but implementation another story. Endmrw1222172022
When I retired in December 2016, CSX had PTC installed and in test operation on 28 Subdivisions - roughly 1/4 of the mileage upon which PTC would be installed upon.
Each subdivision, when put in operation, presented issues that installation on previous subidivisions had not presented. PTC is not a one size fits all plug and play system. Some of the issues that present themselves sometimes go to the very core principals upon which PTC has been built - solving those issues is not something for band-aid, kick the can down the road fixes.
Circa 1969 NP track charts are available on NPRHA website, NPRHA.org. Look for Tacoma Division 16th sub.
The line was built in 1891 as a branch line so it follows the lay of the land fairly closely. In general it crosses a reasonably flat prarie. Mileposts begin at Lakeview, junction with the original NP main line of ca. 1872.
Table of MP, Elevation and notes
MP El. Note
6.0 280 Local low
6.8 310 Local summit
7.5 275 Fort Lewis station, on a flat spot
8.5 275 Grade break point
9.4 250 Begin continuous 1.6% compensated descent south
10.0 Point of derailment
11.2 100 Nisqually, Jct with BNSF main line
My grade calculations are 150 feet descent in 1.8 miles is 83.3 feet per mile, or 1.578% grade, which I belive is 1.6% compensated.
Frankly I am surprised at the short run of maximum grade into the bridge.
This is a natural for split reduction, one at MP 8.5 grade break and one about MP 9, depending on speed at Fort Lewis. Wonder what happened in that 75 to 80 seconds?
Mac
One other thing to consider is that this was redone with Stimulas funding from the Obama Administration and anyone remember the requirements for getting that money. The project had to be aka Shovel Ready. So they rushed to get the money it seems.
Balt response thanks, when writing my inquiry, I thought of a previous statement you made …. It seems that your statement then, was about a day to day troublesome situation created by the “new” wrinkle of normal day to day operation WHEN PTC is thrown in the mix. Speaking of that … the NPR 12 minute audio of BNSF dispatcher “working the traffic” before and during the 501 tragedy is interesting. As for the PTC being a “end all/fix all”, I have mentioned repeatedly the story in the airline industry …… Children of Magenta. DOWN THE ROAD, LATER ON, AFTER PTC IS COMMONPLACE, the crew will start depending on this safety mechanism and then let down the normal attention they should be paying to the job. Your detailed answer/observation was very insightful and points to the nature of the beast. Those who scream of its implementation, …. YESTERDAY …… don’t have a clue. Pass a law and it shall be fixed! Demand it and it will happen! And by the way, when is the airline industry going to be called upon to pay for all private aircraft to install something, or barge lines to install something on other craft in the waterways. The point I am trying to make is UNFUNDED mandates and especially one fraught w/technical and financial issues don’t seem fair to the industry Endmrw1223170838
My industry is going thru the same problem the FMCSA just mandated ELD or electronic log books upon the entire industry unless your a local grain hauler or a Livestock hauler for the next 120 days. Well they are looking for a solution for the major problem which in our case is their own HOS regulations they hammered with us in a guise of safety. They imposed a 14 hour clock that can not be stopped for any reason on us in the last change of the HOS rules that does not take into consideration delays at Shippers recievers breakdowns getting fuel stopping to use the bathroom getting a meal nothing. From the time you go on duty you have 14 hours to work in that day and 11 are allowed for driving and you better be able to use them all most of the time as most carriers demand it. Then throw in forced resets by mega carriers where after 34 off you given a fresh 70 hours to use. We have seen accidents spike at the mega fleets where drivers have been on duty a total of 98 hours in 8 days at it is legal now compared to just over a decade ago when it was a hard cap of 70 in 8 and no resets. How is working a driver more safer for the public. Even at my company we can not figure that one out. Don’t get me wrong we have drivers in their 5 days they run during the week burn their 70 hours but they are home on the weekend every weekend. Anyone see the problem with how the problem is the knee jerking to a so called problem rather than analizing the problem first and solving it.
FMCSA ??? I taught physics to high schoolers who would later become civil engineers … I warned, the textbook and what we are doing is ONLY a start. When dealing w/problems in the REAL world there are issues out there that you don’t have a clue about. Proceed slowly and cautiously w/your advise and calculations. Those unkowns that you don’t realize are there, can EAT YOUR Lunch and ruin your life. Listen to all that is said if advice given/or questions asked … just might point to something you had not thought about endmrw1223170928
Here in Germany we have kind of a predecessor of PTC since the 1980: LZB (Linienzugbeeinflussung, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linienzugbeeinflussung)
Among others it corrects speed limit violations. These violations are recorded AFAIK. What would happen to American railroaders after such violations?
The LZB is currently replaced by the European Train Control System, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Train_Control_System
Regards, Volker