BY SAM MANUEL

WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a gesture to deflect criticism from a fatal train disaster three weeks earlier, the CSX rail corporation announced new safety procedures September 9. The government is currently investigating the August 20 collision of two CSX freight trains near Morgantown, West Virginia.

Engineer Thomas Shay, 45, and conductor Brennis Stevens, 62, were killed when their locomotives burst into flames after a head-on crash with the other train, whose engineer and conductor sustained serious injuries.

The two trains were operating in an area of track without automated signals. Movement of the trains is controlled by verbal instructions issued from the CSX dispatching center in Jacksonville, Florida. That area only has a single track, with a stretch of track - known as siding - that allows a train to pull off the main track so that one traveling in the opposite direction may pass.

In this case, an eastbound train, sitting in a siding, was told it could re-enter the track after a westbound train passed. It then however, collided with a second westbound train. The new safety guidelines will require a crew to confirm with the dispatcher that the track is clear before re-entering the main line.

There are now half a dozen "ongoing" investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) into train disasters in which rail workers, passengers, or others have been killed since the beginning of the year. The government and company investigations have focused on alleged errors by the train crews. They have paid little attention to the impact of the railroad owners' "cost-cutting" measures on safe train operations.

Until the mid-1960s, most railroads operated on multiple main-line tracks. Each track was designated a direction of movement. This reduced the chances of a head-on collision. In an effort to cut track maintenance costs, many railroaded reduced their main lines to a single track with sidings. They have also increasingly reduced or eliminated automated signals on "nonprofitable" tracks, which in many cases carry passengers.

A February 16 collision of two passenger trains near Washington, D.C., in which 11 people were killed could have been prevented had CSX not removed a signal on the departing end of a station that would have warned the engineer to stop at the next signal.

While railroads cut corners on safety, the July 15 Wall Street Journal reported that the rail industry expected to post profit gains in the second quarter of 1996 of 15 to 17 percent from a year earlier.

Nearly once an hour in the United States, trains derail, collide with each other, or slam into cars on crossing grades, according to an article in the May 27 U.S. News and World Report. Last year, 1,144 rail workers, passengers, motorists and others died and 14,000 were injured in train catastrophes. Another 10,000 were evacuated from their homes due to hazardous material spilled from train wrecks.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home