Passenger Trains > Amtrak lets two private cars run away, collide, derail

Early this morning at Hialeah FL, Amtrak was servicing equipment in from Train
97(18) and cut off two private cars without properly securing them with hand brakes.
The two private cars ran away and collided into the side of an Amtrak coach,
damaging the coach and derailing one of the private cars. The damaged equipment
blocked the way out for the equipment of Train 98(20) causing a delay in its
initial terminal departure.

WHAT "safety culture???"



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/14 10:09 by GenePoon.

Anyone know which tswo private cars were involved?

I would say this is a double dose self infliction action too me. When will it ever end??????

GenePoon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Early this morning at Hialeah FL, Amtrak was
> servicing equipment in from Train
> 97(18) and cut off two private cars without
> properly securing them with hand brakes.
> The two private cars ran away and collided into
> the side of an Amtrak coach,
> damaging the coach and derailing one of the
> private cars. The damaged equipment
> blocked the way out for the equipment of Train
> 98(20) causing a delay in its
> initial terminal departure.
>
> WHAT "safety culture???"

You watch. This will be Amtrak's "solution."

No more handling of private cars.

"Transferance" is a refined specialty in certain circles.

Safety culture at Amtrak? Here are the Class 1 railroad reportable employee injury stats for 2013 from the [u]FRA[/u]:

Reportable accidents per 200,000 employee hours (2013):

Amtrak: 4.08
BNSF: 1.09
CN: 1.89
CP: 2.17
CSX: 0.90
KCS: 1.82
NS: 1.17
UP: 1.14

Amtrak has nearly the twice employee injury rate of the next worst Class 1 railroad, and its rate is more than four times higher than the best Class 1. That certainly suggests a problem with the safety culture.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/14 13:01 by prr60.

Is there a bias with any RR that a reportable incident is a mark against you, so are under-reported ?

Maybe if they were switching with a "belt pack" they could have covered it all up and swept it under the carpet.

Collision? What collision?

As a former senior manager at Amtrak, I can tell you that the way these statistics are kept, it's impossible for Amtrak to ever achieve the same numbers as a freight railroad. Part of the reason the freight railroads have reduced injuries is because we have successfully contracted out the work processes where injuries are most likely to occur, and we don't have employees walking up and down on moving trains.

Car repair has significant contract elements at freight railroads, and those activities are the source of many soft-tissue injuries, not reported if it happens at a contract shop. Most of the Class I train crews are step on/step off and ride a lot of miles and those are not the injury-prone jobs (unless the crew falls asleep and runs a signal), and there is a far higher proportion of those man-hours as a percentage of total man-hours for freight railroads than for Amtrak. PHall is probably in a better position to comment on this because he has more current info that me.

A commissary employee who gets a cut and goes for stitches, with lost time, is a reportable injury. The freight railroads have nothing comparable.

Sorry, but you are comparing apples and floor tile.

prr60 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Safety culture at Amtrak? Here are the Class 1
> railroad reportable employee injury stats for 2013
> from the FRA:
>
> Reportable accidents per 200,000 employee hours
> (2013):
>
> Amtrak: 4.08
> BNSF: 1.09
> CN: 1.89
> CP: 2.17
> CSX: 0.90
> KCS: 1.82
> NS: 1.17
> UP: 1.14
>
> Amtrak has nearly the employee injury rate of the
> next worst Class 1 railroad, and its rate is more
> than four times higher than the best Class 1.
> That certainly suggests a problem with the safety
> culture.

As of 1400 HRS 92 is not shown out of Hialeah.
Two hours late.


Uncle Joe,Seffner,Fl.

Kinda hard to imagine any cars rolling away in Hialeah, unless they had been given a little nudge. I thought Florida was flat.

I am intrigued by this incident, a runaway set of cars in one of the flattest parts of the US. Was some force added to the un-braked cars so they began moving? If they began moving on their own, was no one in the area as they slowly started moving who could climb aboard and apply the brakes? No spare lumber to chock them? There is something more here than the simple reporting.

CA_Sou_MA_Agent Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Maybe if they were switching with a "belt pack"
> they could have covered it all up and swept it
> under the carpet.
>
> Collision? What collision?

Ain't that the truth! Seen that more than once.

Posted from iPhone

Tim Rich
S. Ogden, UT

eee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As a former senior manager at Amtrak, I can tell
> you that the way these statistics are kept, it's
> impossible for Amtrak to ever achieve the same
> numbers as a freight railroad. Part of the reason
> the freight railroads have reduced injuries is
> because we have successfully contracted out the
> work processes where injuries are most likely to
> occur, and we don't have employees walking up and
> down on moving trains.
>
> Car repair has significant contract elements at
> freight railroads, and those activities are the
> source of many soft-tissue injuries, not reported
> if it happens at a contract shop. Most of the
> Class I train crews are step on/step off and ride
> a lot of miles and those are not the injury-prone
> jobs (unless the crew falls asleep and runs a
> signal), and there is a far higher proportion of
> those man-hours as a percentage of total man-hours
> for freight railroads than for Amtrak. PHall is
> probably in a better position to comment on this
> because he has more current info that me.
>
> A commissary employee who gets a cut and goes for
> stitches, with lost time, is a reportable injury.
> The freight railroads have nothing comparable.
>
> Sorry, but you are comparing apples and floor
> tile.
>
> prr60 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Safety culture at Amtrak? Here are the Class 1
> > railroad reportable employee injury stats for
> 2013
> > from the FRA:
> >
> > Reportable accidents per 200,000 employee hours
> > (2013):
> >
> > Amtrak: 4.08
> > BNSF: 1.09
> > CN: 1.89
> > CP: 2.17
> > CSX: 0.90
> > KCS: 1.82
> > NS: 1.17
> > UP: 1.14
> >
> > Amtrak has nearly the employee injury rate of
> the
> > next worst Class 1 railroad, and its rate is
> more
> > than four times higher than the best Class 1.
> > That certainly suggests a problem with the
> safety
> > culture.

on Amtrak I know it doesn't even take stitches ... injuries that are considered FRA reportable have to meet FRA requirements to be considered as such ... one of the requirements to be considered a FRA reportable injury is for any pain medication to be prescribed by a medical doctor ... Amtrak's management does it's best to try to push for the doctors to not prescribe pain medication and instead try to persuade the doctors to hand out over-the-counter medication ... I witnessed this on quite a few occasions and even experienced it myself with my own work related injury when I was in excruciating pain and went to a University emergency room and the Amtrak manager (who diagnosed my condition with in his own mind medical degree)told the doctor all I had was a sprained neck when in fact (after MRI tests I had done when I got home)it was determined I had 2 full tear rotator cuffs in both shoulders and bulging discs in my neck and back ... the doctor never asked me how much pain I was in on the 1-10 scale a hospital requirement ... I never had any X-rays or MRI tests done in the emergency room on my shoulders or spine ... all the Amtrak manager wanted to do is get me out of there to take me back to hqtrs to get my statement ... no concern whatsoever about my injury ...

let me add I did not violate nor was I charged with violating any safety rules with the incident that occurred resulting in my injury ...



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/14 12:01 by Out_Of_Service.

glad nobody was injured

any info on the private cars involved?

And freight RR's don't have a dozen OBS employees getting bounced around either.

Separate those numbers along with station staff and Amtrak would look pretty good.

eee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As a former senior manager at Amtrak, I can tell
> you that the way these statistics are kept, it's
> impossible for Amtrak to ever achieve the same
> numbers as a freight railroad.

While I have to accept what eee says, at least in some respects, I also disagree considerably in that local freight jobs are out there switching cars in all sorts of yards, working all sorts of industries with all sorts of lighting and footing in all sorts of weather, while Amtrak's crews tend not to face any of those issues. While Amtrak has a few yards, they tend to keep passenger trains together except in case of bad-order cars, and their yards are smaller and, presumably, in better condition than many freight yards. While eee might be correct about road freight crews boarding and riding to the next crew-change point, the same can be said for Amtrak Engineers, and the Amtrak road train crews are riding a passenger train, and boarding and alighting at each stop on a platform. It's not dangerous work.

I can't comment on his position on shop work, except that Amtrak has running-repair facilities and freight yards have RIP tracks, too. For backshop work, perhaps Amtrak can compare Bear and Beech Grove against UP North Little Rock or NS Juniata Terminal or Roanoke Shop, and maybe that's apples-to-apples instead of apples to floor tiles.

Both Amtrak and freight railroads, especially Class 1s, have track gangs, both division and production gangs, and I suspect those would be fair comparisons. Judging from years of reading Out_Of_Service's comments here on TO, I'll guess that he's an Amtrak Track Department employee, and he speaks above of his experience with his own injury and Amtrak management.

Besides eee's assertion about freight-car repair shops being contracted out, the one significant difference is Passenger Service employees, both those on the trains and in the stations. We've seen comments on here in the past about the On Board Services personnel having a propensity to get injured in various types of accidents. I don't know whether that's true, but we've seen comments about it. We've seen the term, "Hit the Amtrak lottery." If so, that's a cultural issue at Amtrak. I've never heard of anyone "Hitting the NS lottery" or "Hitting the BNSF lottery."

I hope we can hear from more employees of both Amtrak and freight railroads on why they think Amtrak's injury ratio is 4 times higher than the worst Class 1.

Were the car owners/staff on the cars when all this happened?

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

eee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> A(n Amtrak) commissary employee who gets a cut and goes for
> stitches, with lost time, is a reportable injury.
> The freight railroads have nothing comparable.

==========================================================================

Actually, neither does Amtrak. Amtrak commissary operations have been
contracted out since about 2000, back when George "Voucher Boy" Warrington was CEO.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/14 13:25 by GenePoon.

GenePoon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> eee Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > A(n Amtrak) commissary employee who gets a cut
> and goes for
> > stitches, with lost time, is a reportable
> injury.
> > The freight railroads have nothing comparable.
>
> ==================================================
> ========================
>
> Actually, neither does Amtrak. Amtrak commissary
> operations have been
> contracted out since about 2000, back when George
> "Voucher" Warrington was CEO.

Not to hijack this thread, but isn't the ongoing theft of funds, alcohol and food in the commissary a major focus of the Office of Inspector General? If this is a contractor operation, it would seem to be easier to resolve.

RevRandy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ... If they began moving on their own,
> was no one in the area as they slowly started
> moving who could climb aboard and apply the
> brakes? No spare lumber to chock them? There is
> something more here than the simple reporting.

Ya think? In my 19½ year Amtrak experience I was often left shaking my head at questionable (and, unfortunately, sometimes downright dangerous) movements of equipment directed by ACs and Cs with whom I was working. A lot of it was due to lack of training but then what can one expect when newbies are often being trained by co-workers who never learned how to do the job properly and efficiently themselves.

It is rather unnerving to be under the command of a conductor (as I have done while running short-crewed Talgos) when you know that you're the only crew member on the train who can look at a switch and tell which way you're going to go because your conductor (who's supposedly in charge of the train) lacks that capability! Is it any wonder that back in the '90s Amtrak made their engineers equally responsible for all reverse moves because there were so many screw-ups taking place while backing into station tracks or other locations? Don't take me wrong -- I'm not knocking the craft. I'm knocking the improper and/or incomplete training of the craft members which can easily result in undesired circumstances as reported here.

Somewhat off topic: I worked pre-Amtrak passenger service and have never ceased to be amazed how what used to be a normal, quick 15 or 20 minute, efficiently done, make-up or break-up of trains at an en route junction station could be turned into an hour-or-longer ordeal by Amtrak. Apparently that ability, or the desire to accomplish it, died with the old-timers.