This week looks like one of the busiest for the Los Angeles Council as members struggle to come up with a final deal that best addresses improvements in railroad safety.
This hustle was spawned by several train wrecks in the past, the latest of which was the collision between a freight train and commuter train last week.
The recent train tragedy is considered America’s worst rail disaster in 15 years. It led to 26 passengers losing their lives and 134 others getting injured.
Better Laws, Greater Safety
In one article we published last week, we talked about legislators and railroad advocates pushing for the birth of laws that would support the adoption of a more advanced safety feature for trains. This feature is called positive train control or PTC systems, a technology that can slow the train and engage the brakes if it misses a signal or gets on the wrong track.
One resolution passed this week supports the Federal Railroad Safety Improvement Act. The said act would require the installation of PTC in trains no later than December 31, 2018.
Another resolution pushes for the Rail Collision Prevention Act. Authored by Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, the bill would require the installation of PTC systems on high-risk lines by December 31, 2012 and all other major rail lines by 2014.
“Human error will always occur and we can’t account for that,” said Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles City’s Council President. “What we can do is take technology to make sure that it overcomes human error and that we prevent these tragedies from happening,” he said.
Railroad Industry and FRA
While legislators are pressured to finalize a deal by the end of this week, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and the railroad industry take the hot seat. Both claim they are for the installation of the PTS systems. However, neither of them wants legislators to impose a timeline.
Photo by Ruben
The railroad industry even said that heavy regulation is not the solution. The FRA added that it doesn’t need new safety inspectors to do its job.
Correcting Work Hours
Both the Senate and the House proposed safety bills that would propose a decrease in the number of work hours kept by railroad workers. This is in response to the belief that exhaustion could have caused the train’s engineer, Robert Sanchez, to ignore three separate warning signals for the train to stop.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein was among those who questioned Sanchez’s schedule, which required him to work five days a week, 11 hours each day, in split shifts. According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Sanchez began each of his work days just before 6 a.m. He worked until almost 9:30 a.m. and took a 4 ½-hour break before starting with his seven-hour shift at 2 p.m. The train wreck happened at 4:23 p.m.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. passed a bill that would allow railroad employees to keep a 276-hour schedule every month. This is a far cry from the 432 hours they are allowed to work each month.
Banning Cellphone Use
Another possible cause of the crash the NTSB is looking into is Sanchez getting distracted because of text messages. Sanchez held a good reputation among his teenage neighbors who were train buffs. The 14-year olds said they had an exchange of text messages with the train engineer minutes before the train crash. The teens added that they received a text message from Sanchez at 4:22 p.m., which is a minute before the crash happened.
The NTSB issued a subpoena to review the text messages in Sanchez’s cell phone records. The California Public Utilities Commission also recently banned the use of all cellular devices by engineers while operating commuter or freight trains.
While legislators passed several rail safety bills, they hope to resolve differences and come up with a final deal before the election recess on Friday.
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