Page 45 - Train Control News Today

And i assume you know robert from your years at the ntsb. whats your reaction to what he said? >> i was shocked as i think deborah was, that this accident occurred because as she mentioned, it has happened before. and theres two things that are going to happen right away. one is theyre going to look at the engineer very carefully. theyre going to pull his cell phone records to see if he was distracted or on his cell. theyre going to look at his activities, the 72 hours beforehand. and theyre goi...

Crucial factor that really could have played a significant role in the situation. a default system that could have stopped this accident. what were told about positive train control is its a system designed to alert the engineer when the train is moving at excessive speed where there are places of a specific speed limit. its based on the grade, the contour of the track, and the speed with which the train is going. its supposed to alert the engineer the train is going too fast. if the engineer fa...

Help absorb some of the energy of the skprash it probably i dont know this for a fact but it probably has positive train control. i dont know. >> hey, mary stand by. i want to tell you, this is according to new jersey fire alert, that im getting here on my twitter and bernie kerik is getting here. according to them again, this is amtrak train 188, okay? again, this is coming from the new jersey fire alert. overturns in philadelphia after slamming into a csx freight train. again, thats according ...

Occurred -- >> what does that mean? >> well its called access on amtrak and what it is it reads the speed of the train and it compares it to what the mandatory speed is and it will stop the train in the fact that the engineer is speeding. it was not on this track at this time. >> jim 71 years ago, some people have been comparing it to one of the worst train accidents in our nations history, 1943 killed 79 people and injured 117. it just so happens that the crash last night was almost an exact pl...

Rules. the asella train has something called positive train control, or automatic train stop. so that speed is monitored, and if the engineer for whatever reason, is exceeding the speed, the train will automatically stop. youve got an amtrak train in this accident that apparently did not have that feature. so it is possible through technology to monitor speed. we will know more once we get the read out of the black box. but from my perspective, that technology ought to be on every train in the n...

Have a control system which would have prevented this accident and the investment was not there to put it in. >> just a -- >> if you have the engineer who was attempting to go in an excessive rate of speed for whatever reason which we do not know the train control would have automatically prevented the accident. >> who needs an engineer in that event, right is it. >> neil weve had a lot of conversations. you can say you need power. of course you need -- >> right. >> but its for safety. >> but th...

>> lets talk for a moment about what sumwalt, the ntsb board member mentioned and what you just mentioned, this positive train control. a lot of us arent familiar with that. but basically from my understanding, if that were in place, the train could not have been going into that curve at 106 miles per hour it would have been automatically going in at 50 miles per hour, which is what it was supposed to do, is that right? >> thats correct. and whats tragic is that there is a form of positive train...

The cabin to see what the engineer is doing, dozed off, fell asleep or whatever? >> we certainly called for cameras in the loco motive cabs. we have called for inward facing cameras. we had to call for that after tragic accidents. so, we have called for that. we are waiting for a regulatory authority to act on that recommendation. >> whats their excuse? >> well im going to let you ask them that question. its not my position to make to apologize for other federal agencies. >> if this area in phil...

Miles per hour. what other factors could have contributed to the crash? >> well i dont think anything other than human error. they are developing positive train control that would allow the computer to intervene if the human make answer error. but thats a work in progress. thats proceeding about as fast as it can. theyre having a lot of technological growing pains. but thalg get there. >> kitty, how does this derailment compare to others you have seen? >> well reverend al i was in california for...

This. there are thousands of accidents a year and hundreds of deaths and, carol, overwhelmingly the number of fatalities they are happening at these rail crossings. >> so what are officials doing to ensure the rails are safe? >> reporter: there is technology out there. there is technology for example, that prevents the cars from crumpling. we found that at play in the california incident. thats been known to save lives. theres also technology called positive train control. that would not have he...