MENDON, Mo. — A fourth person, and third train passenger, has died as a result of Monday’s grade crossing accident and collision involving Amtrak’s Southwest Chief, the Missouri State Highway Patrol has reported.
USA Today reports that 150 people were injured in the accident, receiving treatment at 10 area hospitals for injuries ranging from minor to serious.
The section of BNSF Railway track where the accident occurred will be out of service for “a matter of days” as the accident investigation continues, according to National Transportation Safety Board chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, who is leading the 16-person NTSB team that arrived onsite at midday Tuesday.
The U. S. commercial airline industry is the safest form of transportation in the world. Even walking is more dangerous.
Americans have the attention span of a kitten this so called negative perception of rail travel as a result of recent accidents is only reinforced to those who already are unlikely rail passengers yet they & the general public overlook the carnage that takes place everyday on the roads because that is their mode choice of travel. And the airlines!!! Thank God for them they are so faultless & perfect in every way! Maybe if the Govt had invested as generously in the railroads who got the country through WWII as they did the Hwys & aviation we might have a more balanced & efficient transportation system in this country but the moneyed influence prevailed & the Govt p****d on the RR’s. Mr Shapp is correct this could be the end of the skeletal LD network with 8 cars in this wreck & 3 from the Empire Bldr wreck last year all of which will probably be written off I believe we will be seeing more permanently reduced schedules very shortly. Plenty of new locomotives but no cars for them to haul!
Some thoughts:
1. It is 2022, a crossing with just a crossbuck is obsolete in a first world country.
2. All routes hosting passenger trains that have grade crossings need quad gates.
3. Employ technology to have camera monitoring of grade crossings with real time views available in cab and to dispatchers (so that vehicles blocking crossings are noted before collisions).
3. Reform Amtrak legal agreements with host railroads so that accidents like this one don’t fall exclusively on Amtrak through indemnity clauses. As it stands now, Amtrak will have to bear the entire cost of this loss and the host railroad has minimal incentive to upgrade the crossing.
4. Order Superliner replacements. The fleet is tired and we need additional equipment.
Can we face facts? Amtrak (and/or the host freight railroads) have a safety problem, at least in the public’s perception. Foxnews.com today is running an article listing Amtrak fatalities over the past ten years. It’s not entertaining reading for us rail advocates.
For years, we rail advocates have gotten by on the comforting feeling that most people survive a rail crash or derailment — unlike a plane that crashes, typically killing all passengers and crew. Also we self-justify because grade crossing crashes have the motorist or truck driver to blame, neither the host railroad or Amtrak.
That’s not good enough. Any one given airline can easily go a decade, two, three, four decades without a fatality. With many, many more flights (per each airline) than Amtrak has trains. And almost infinitely more passenger – miles. For example, Northwest’s mass fatality crash (one survivor) at Detroit Metro was I think 1987. (It was blamed on pilot error, a flight deck crew inherited from Republic Airlines after that carrier merged into Northwest.) If Northwest or Delta has had a fatality since, I don’t remember it. For another example, Southwest has killed two people in its entire history, one passenger and one on the ground.
Pardon an unfortunate metaphor – the most recent school shotting, which was Uvalde, Texas, was clearly a tipping point. The public finally lost its tolerance. Will this be a tipping point for Amtrak? Two grade crossing crashes within a day or so. Neither one remotely Amtrak’s fault. Tell that to the public.
Finally, some of the fatal incidents clearly were Amtrak’s fault or the host railroad: obviously including Tacoma, Philadelphia, and the M/W workers killed on NEC.
Excellent post, Charles. Yes this could be some kind of a “tipping point” for Amtrak. One kind will be public distrust borne out of the lack of understanding of railroad operations and the underlying supporting infrastructure. The entire industry flies underneath the public’s and media’s radar, to use a metaphor. The other “tipping point” could be Amtrak’s ability to operate even its skeletal “network” for lack of equipment now that at least 8 cars have been badly damaged and will be out of service for months if not or good.
People reading TRAINS MAGAZINE can blame BNSF, or the Missouri Highway Department, or the local county DPW, whatever. People reading USA Today or watching CNN will blame Amtrak. There may be thirty or forty BNSF freights on that track but only two Amtrak trains, it’s the Amtrak train that crashed.
The people getting their news from CNN and blaming Amtrak may not be far off. You buy your ticket from Amtrak, Amtrak is supposed to get you where you’re going.
All points well taken Charles. However, comparing airline safety to train safety is like comparing apples to oranges. These are two different types of transportation each with their own specific hazards. The blame here is on the operator of the dump truck, had the train been a minute late or early we would not be talking about this. And last I checked, no plane has ever hit a dump truck while in flight.
Seems like a Prevagen moment there Charles. You speak from an armchair view which translates to a limited points of view. You appear politically un and ill -informed concerning our republic and how it takes all Americans to accept and respect one another and work together, regardless of PARTY, to achieve a decent and co-operating society, with the intelligence to self-rule. President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg are both brilliant and well-qualified to lead a nation willing to work together instead of spending the entire terms arguing or getting revenge. Rebuilding our infrastructure is a top priority. We deserve all forms of convenient transportation options be it with rail, air, boat or interstate highway system. Build these correctly and they will sustain us. WE can make this work for all. Stop the bitchin’ and start the pichin’ in for a future U.S.A. that we can all be proud of. Let it go !!!! Stop the offensive criticism of our leaders and work with leadership for results that we ALL can enjoy.
I enjoy reading about railroads and trains here.
+1
Really. Can we face the fact that rail passenger travel is comparable safety-wise with air travel statistically. The true dangerous travel mode is the highway. While the loss of life and injuries are very tragic in this collision, well over 100 people lost their lives on American roads the same day.