Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is seeking a congressional inquiry into Amtrak’s safety practices after Monday’s passenger-train crash near DuPont in Pierce County.
“Millions of Americans depend on rail service each day, and businesses in every corner of our country depend on freight rail to keep commerce running. Therefore, the alarming rate of incidents on our rails is cause for tremendous concern,” Cantwell wrote in a letter Thursday to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
Cantwell, a longtime supporter of better truck, rail, and port infrastructure, mentioned incidents that have killed a total of 46 people and injured 450 others — the 2008 Chatsworth, Calif., crash where a Metrolink train ran a red signal and crashed into a freight train; two commuter-train crashes in New York City, and the 2015 Philadelphia-area crash where the engineer sped around a curve and the train derailed.
An Amtrak train also derailed July 2 at Chambers Bay near Tacoma, without major injuries, when a track device deflected a train that was slowing but missed a stop signal near a drawbridge.
The derailment in DuPont killed three people and injured dozens of other passengers and crew, including an engineer and conductor in the lead locomotive. The train hurtled off-track going 80 mph in a 30-mph curve, for reasons that are being investigated, the National Transportation Safety Board says.
Since the 2008 California crash, Congress has sporadically debated and contributed money toward positive train control, a satellite-based system to slow or stop a train that’s speeding or approaching obstacles. Congress extended a 2015 implementation deadline to Dec. 31, 2018.
In Washington state, the costly technology has recently been activated on BNSF Railway freight trains, and is under testing on Amtrak trains to go live next year. Most of Sound Transit’s commuter trains are equipped and certified to use PTC, and the system activates 56 percent of the time, during a difficult startup phase.
Other areas for scrutiny, that are often debated in the rail industry, include whether crew training and staffing levels are adequate; the condition of aging U.S. rail infrastructure; and operating patterns through communities that grow or change.
Amtrak Cascades 501 was on its inaugural trip through a passenger corridor south of Tacoma when the crash occurred. It derailed while approaching a curve and railroad trestle built in 1910, used historically for lower-speed freight and passenger lines, and recently upgraded with new rails.
That trackway is owned by Sound Transit, while Cascades trains are owned and overseen by the Washington State Department of Transportation. The passenger service is operated by Amtrak.
Cantwell asked for an oversight hearing in January, in her letter to Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who chairs the committee, and ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla.
