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.”

Richard Olson, a San Diego-based railroad safety consultant with 32 years of experience in the industry, said rail agencies typically have counselors on staff to console train operators who have been involved in an accident. Olson was part of one such team and even counseled his son, a railroad engineer, who struck and killed a pedestrian committing suicide by train.

“Suicide prevention is pretty much near impossible,” he said. “It’s pretty traumatic for a locomotive engineer to have a fatality. No matter how safe you make the train system, accidents are going to happen because you are dealing with the public.”

Law enforcement partnership

SMART has also been educating students about the dangers of playing near the tracks, and other road users who might be tempted to outrun an approaching train through a rail crossing.

“Those bikers who ride and run a stop sign because they’re hoping the cars are stopping - with the train, it’s a different story,” Mansourian said. “At the speeds we’re going, it’s going to take our trains a mile to stop. This is not a little car that can just stop because somebody’s jaywalking.”

Generally, the trains will be traveling at lower speeds in urban areas, resulting in average overall speed for the line of 40 mph.

Some transit agencies, like BART, have their own law enforcement divisions. But SMART will instead partner with law enforcement along the line to ensure the safety of the traveling public, Welch said.

To safeguard the grade crossings, the agency has applied for a $250,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security to install cameras at heavily traveled crossings. Dispatchers monitoring the camera feeds could tell if a vehicle was stuck on the tracks and alert a train to slow down or stop, Mansourian said.

Preparing for the inevitable

No matter how many precautions the agency takes, officials are preparing for the inevitable accident they say is bound to occur on the SMART tracks.

Protocols are in place for various incidents from minor equipment malfunctions to injury accidents to fatal collisions. In any accident involving an injury, emergency responders would get the first call. Depending on how serious the accident, a number of agencies could get involved including the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Railroad Administration, the California Public Utilities Commission and even the FBI.

“I don’t believe it is possible to devise a system to prevent a human being from getting on the tracks,” said Jake Mackenzie, a Rohnert Park City councilman and SMART board member.

Mackenzie pointed out that drivers get into major car crashes or hit pedestrians on roads every day.

“Do we shut down the freeways? No, we don’t,” he said.

Public not used to rail traffic

Supervisor David Rabbitt, a SMART board member, said that the public is not used to having an active railroad in the North Bay. SMART will offer the first passenger train service in the North Bay in 60 years. Currently, a few freight trains per week ply the tracks in Sonoma County and as far south as Novato.

“At the end of the day, it’s about awareness,” he said. “When passenger trains start running at a good clip, that’s a different animal.”

As one of the public faces of SMART, Rabbitt said he is not looking forward to the first serious train accident.

“It’s foolish to believe there won’t be an accident in the future,” he said. “Everyone’s going to be dreading that call when it happens.”

You can reach Staff Writer Matt Brown at 521-5206 or matt.brown@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MattBrownPD.