SMART seeks insight into safety challenges after series of recent rail crashes
As communities in the Bay Area and Southern California reeled from three separate commuter train disasters this week, officials constructing the North Bay’s passenger rail line are studying the accidents and trying to gain insight into building the safest possible system, while at the same time preparing for the worst.
Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit officials are installing a high-tech, anti-collision system designed to regulate train speeds and prevent the deadliest accidents. They are exploring using video monitoring at highly trafficked crossings to alert engineers of possible hazards ahead. And they are educating drivers, pedestrians and students about safety in a rail corridor that has mostly been dormant for decades.
But even with all of those measures in place, officials acknowledge that accidents and fatalities are bound to happen when 80-ton commuter trains start rolling through the North Bay at a top speed of 79 mph.
“It would be nice to think that nothing is ever going to happen to SMART, but we all know better than that,” said Jennifer Welch, SMART’s security manager.
The spate of commuter rail crashes in California this week highlight the challenges that SMART faces as it looks to begin service along a 43-mile segment of the North Bay rail line at the end of next year.
On Monday evening, a Caltrain locomotive collided with an SUV stuck on the tracks at a road crossing in Menlo Park. The 30-year-old driver was killed in the accident. Later on Monday night, a Caltrain struck and killed a man walking on the tracks in San Francisco.
Then, early Tuesday morning, a Metrolink commuter train in Oxnard slammed into a unoccupied truck that was also stuck on the tracks. The fiery crash derailed three train cars and injured 50 people, 28 of whom were hospitalized.
SMART officials are closely following the investigations into the accidents to glean information that can help them plan for safety along the initial Santa Rosa-to-San Rafael route, and especially at the 63 spots where the tracks cross surface streets.
“We use examples that happen in other parts of the country to really build our best model here,” Welch said. “We learn from others’ mistakes and hope that we can avoid them here.”
Positive train control
The SMART network is being built with a federally mandated safety system known as positive train control, which will regulate train speeds and ensure that two trains cannot collide. If the gates do not close at a road or grade crossing, the system will stop the train.
“Positive train control is a technology that allows an operator of a train to not go any faster than he or she is told to go,” said Lisa Cobb, rail systems manager for SMART. “How that relates to grade crossing safety is, nobody can take a train and go faster than they’re allowed to go through a grade crossing.”
An accident like the one Monday in Menlo Park would not have been prevented with the positive train control technology, said Caltrain spokeswoman Jayme Ackemann. In that case, the warning lights and gates that begin to activate, by regulation, 25 seconds before a train passes through the crossing, worked properly, she said. The driver in the SUV was apparently stuck in traffic at the crossing when the train approached. Ackemann said it would have taken a mile for the train to stop.
“There’s a limit to what technology can do,” she said.
A key component of SMART’s initial safety measures involves educating drivers, most of whom - if they have lived in the North Bay for long - haven’t seen the type of rail traffic set to begin next year, when as many as 30 trains per day will be rolling through line’s largest cities.
Officials are reminding drivers to never stop on the tracks. If traffic is moving slowly over a grade crossing, motorists should wait until the car in front has cleared the intersection before proceeding, said Farhad Mansourian, SMART general manager. If the gates come down and you find yourself on the tracks, drive through the gates, he said.
“I’d rather you be explaining to us why you broke two gates than it costing your life,” he said.
Pedestrians on tracks
While crashes with vehicles have the potential to cause the most harm to drivers and train passengers, SMART officials are also preparing to deal with pedestrians on the tracks, including the possibility of suicide by train. SMART is considering partnerships with suicide prevention groups and track-side signs to direct people to suicide prevention resources, Welch said.
“It’s difficult to recognize before it happens, but it’s something that happens in our industry,” she said. “We need to take preventative measures.”
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