EDITORIAL: Time to focus on train safety — passenger and freight

Dec. 20--The fatal Amtrak derailment between Tacoma and Olympia has focused attention on rail safety, scrutiny that is long overdue. As the public and officials ask questions about this passenger rail tragedy, people also should note ongoing safety issues regarding freight rail travel.

Right now, top of mind is Monday morning's derailment that dumped an Amtrak locomotive and train cars onto Interstate 5. The tragic irony -- at least three people died and scores were injured -- is that the train was making the inaugural public passenger run on a new stretch of track designed to enhance speed, reliability and safety.

The investigation has much to reveal but right now focuses on the train's speed, reportedly about 80 mph as it entered a 30 mph curve. Assuming the narrative of high speed stands, the obvious question is why -- whether operator error or impairment, signal problems, equipment failure, track failure or even sabotage as the National Transportation Safety Board investigates. One of the debates centers on what is called Positive Train Control, which reportedly had been installed but was not yet operating.

Positive Train Control, installed on both the tracks and the train, uses a combination of GPS, wireless radio and computers to automatically slow down or stop a train if it is going too fast or is risking an accident. The systems are integrated with signals and speed limits, among other rules. Congress in 2008 ordered PTC installed by 2015, but railroads viewed it as as a costly unfunded mandate and raised technological issues, and Congress eventually pushed back the deadline to the end of next year, and in some cases to 2020.

By accident of timing, the derailment comes a month after the NTSB issued a scathing criticism of Amtrak after a 2016 Pennsylvania derailment that killed two Amtrak employees. "Amtrak's safety programs were deficient and failed to provide effective first-line safety oversight," the NTSB report said. Let us hope that the same cavalier approach to safety doesn't apply to this accident in our state.

Meanwhile, a move earlier this month by the Trump administration is raising concern about freight rail safety. The U.S. Department of Transportation announced it is rolling back a requirement that trains carrying oil and other highly explosive liquids must update their braking systems.

The 2015 Obama-era rule required railroad companies to install electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, which stop a train faster by signaling instantaneously throughout a train, by 2021. The Trump administration cited industry complaints about cost. Critics of the move immediately pounced, with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee citing the 2016 derailment of a Union Pacific oil train in the Columbia River Gorge town of Mosier, Ore. That accident spilled 42,000 gallons of crude oil and sparked a fire that burned for 14 hours -- but no lives were lost, and many officials say it could have been much worse. The Federal Railroad Administration said electronic brakes would have reduced the severity of the Mosier derailment.

The Amtrak crash investigation needs more time to fully determine what happened and how future tragedies could be averted. But the first step can be taken today, and that's for all agencies and railroads to commit to putting passenger and freight rail safety first.

* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Bob Crider and Frank Purdy.

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