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Re: FRA may allow Euro trainsets in 2015; Article is very biased
Author: OldPoleBurner
Date: 11-01-2013 - 12:59
Not only was the article obviously biased, as is much of today's reporting, making the general media all but useless. But the author obviously does not understand one wit about what the FRA is doing. Probably because his own bias clouds his view.
The fact is that regulatory reform at the FRA has been going on for years, and has little to do with pro-European biases. Across the board, the FRA has been revising the wording of its part of the CFR, replacing rigid ("do it this way only") requirements, with functional standards of performance. The most important of these standards, applies across the board to everything done on a railroad, and even applies to the new regulations themselves. That requirement is that any new design or procedure, or any new FRA rule; MUST BE PROVED to provide an equal or better safety level, than whatever it replaces.
Under this rule, the onus of proof that this requirement has been met, is on whomever is making a design change, or rule change. It is typically on the railroad vendor that supplies a new product design, be it a passenger car or PTC, microprocessor based signalling, or whatever. Knowing that, we can begin to see who might want to fight the FRA through their lobbyists and purchased politicians.
The fact is, that the original Acela design failed modern functional performance requirements, as would almost any European design. But the vendor chose to just add weight to beef up the car design, rather than re-design with FRA functional requirements in mind from the outset. After all, that would have cost more money, than merely importing an existing but flawed design. The loud complaints about the "pigs" (beefed up Acela) originated with officers of the vendor, and are completely disingenuous.
Indeed, the European owned supplier of the Acela screwed their own pooch, when they tried to put one over on Amtrak and the FRA, falsely claiming that FRA performance requirements were met. But when actual crash tests were demanded by Amtrak, the original Acela design failed miserably. And failing miserably in crash tests, indicates that high levels of fatalities would have occurred in a real accident. High levels of fatalities did occur when Metrolink cars provided by the same company thrice failed so miserably, while carrying actual passengers! Fact is, they did not perform as required by the FRA, either. But it took the life of 36 people in three accidents, to find that out!
You may see what looks like a European passenger car on this continent, but the resemblance is only skin deep. Flimsy structural designs so common in Europe, will never be allowed. Indeed, since the WMATA tragedy, our government has acted, via the FTA and FRA working together, to toughen up the flimsy passenger car designs used at such places as BART, WMATA, etc; which resemble many European passenger cars in their design methods. And yes, it might add weight to these cars (doesn't have to, but it could). But the carnage MUST STOP.
The only European design that I believe may be able to pass such an FRA crash test, given a few minor corrections, is the TGV. The German ICE train, on the other hand, is an abysmal failure, safety wise. Not only is its control system flawed, but structurally it is not even as strong as an airliner; the result being that its first two major accidents resembled an airplane crash, with hundreds dead. Each!
Its first major accident, was a derailment caused by a broken wheel flange, and resulted in most of the train sideswiping an overpass abutment at approx 180kph. Well over one hundred died, as the cars all disintegrated into piles of scrap metal! No PTS or ERTMS (ETCS) could have prevented that! Not even in the Wildest dreams of the NTSB. Compare that to the performance of Amtrak heritage cars on the Colonial, which sideswiped a Conrail light engine move at a similar speed. 16 people died, 40 were injured sufficient to be hospitalized, and 529 passengers were unhurt.
But that's not all, the German version of the vaunted ERTMS has hazardous design flaws, which have been known about for about a decade now. They were discovered in two fatal accidents. At last I heard, the German Federal Railway (i.e. the German Government) had declined to fix them, considering them to be minor flaws, despite that two people had died already.
The nature of these flaws was that at any time (and every time) an unusual but inevitable set of circumstances combined, the ERTMS (ETCS)would allow multiple trains into the same area without restrictions, inevitable causing an accident. This is the not result of any system failure, but is because of the the way the system was set up. The Dutch, Italian and Spanish ERTMS (ETCS) systems also have known flaws, where they can fail in unsafe ways.
But before we condemn the European train control system (ETCS - sometimes called ERTMS), we should look closer to home, at the flaws in the proposed American PTS, which are already known to thousands of railways signal engineers and maintainers throughout the United States.
PTS as now conceived is seriously flawed, and will be for many years to come. But the politicians are not listening to the experts; but instead to greedy corporations, who have already compromised even the NTSB. Moreover, it is doomed as now envisioned anyway, as the FCC is currently unable to grant the necessary radio bandwidth, and foresees no possibility any time soon. Sufficient bandwidth is simply not now available!
The most common proposed applications of PTS rely upon GPS (radio ranging technology), to determine where a given train is, before it is commanded. But to be as safe as existing cab signal technology, which it is replacing, it must attain an extremely high certainty level as to where a train is, and what track it is on, before PTS commands can be acted upon. This simply cannot be done with the current state of the art - not even close! The closest we come to, is around +/- 350ft with an acceptable certainty level, and that's with stationary beacons, not moving satellites. That's why not even the patent holder of radio ranging technology, which GPS relies upon, is willing to certify its use for any safety critical purpose.
But not to worry, a better precedent has already been set, because the FRA has already certified a system relying on long proven cab signal technology, to be in compliance with the law mandating PTS; that of the UTA's 90 mile Frontrunner commuter system. There is now a considerable amount talk of doing the same everywhere. So just like that, all four problems holding up PTS (inadequate safety, non-inter-operability, lack of radio spectrum, extreme cost), could be solved immediately; finally permitting what should have happened decades ago, to finally occur. But don't expect that to happen without a big fight, unless congress starts listening to the experts, rather than to a railroad vendor's lobbyists.
This is possible since a coded signal traveling through the rails has the natural advantage of being confined to single fixed track circuit. Therefore, knowing the exact location of the train is no longer necessary, nor is a myriad frequencies for spread spectrum radio. Moreover, cab signals long ago attained iner-operability. All that is necessary to make a cab signal system compliant, is to replace the "forestalling lever" with continuous automatic braking supervision and enforcement; and the rearrangement of coding scheme already in place in most track circuits. Provision to signal the final stop at a signal or a block boundary without any signal at all, must also be provided. But these things cost orders of magnitude less than PTS is costing.
There is no need to rely less safe upon European technology, nor to rely upon flawed American technology either. But the plain fact is, that the Europeans simply have a very different perspective on how safe do you need to be. Occasional loss of life seems to be acceptable to European governments, even if it could have been prevented.
But not so here! - Most ordinary Americans see things very differently; and for decades upon decades, have demanded that their government do all that is possible to prevent injury and death from train accidents. But note that the audacity of citizens demanding anything from their government, is a relatively new concept to the ordinary European, as is the concept that it even is "their" government.
Europeans will eventually come around - on both counts. In the meantime, Americans need to stand their ground. Otherwise, what they would really be giving into, is pure and simple corporate greed, that doesn't want to play by the rules. Any rules!
OPB
The fact is that regulatory reform at the FRA has been going on for years, and has little to do with pro-European biases. Across the board, the FRA has been revising the wording of its part of the CFR, replacing rigid ("do it this way only") requirements, with functional standards of performance. The most important of these standards, applies across the board to everything done on a railroad, and even applies to the new regulations themselves. That requirement is that any new design or procedure, or any new FRA rule; MUST BE PROVED to provide an equal or better safety level, than whatever it replaces.
Under this rule, the onus of proof that this requirement has been met, is on whomever is making a design change, or rule change. It is typically on the railroad vendor that supplies a new product design, be it a passenger car or PTC, microprocessor based signalling, or whatever. Knowing that, we can begin to see who might want to fight the FRA through their lobbyists and purchased politicians.
The fact is, that the original Acela design failed modern functional performance requirements, as would almost any European design. But the vendor chose to just add weight to beef up the car design, rather than re-design with FRA functional requirements in mind from the outset. After all, that would have cost more money, than merely importing an existing but flawed design. The loud complaints about the "pigs" (beefed up Acela) originated with officers of the vendor, and are completely disingenuous.
Indeed, the European owned supplier of the Acela screwed their own pooch, when they tried to put one over on Amtrak and the FRA, falsely claiming that FRA performance requirements were met. But when actual crash tests were demanded by Amtrak, the original Acela design failed miserably. And failing miserably in crash tests, indicates that high levels of fatalities would have occurred in a real accident. High levels of fatalities did occur when Metrolink cars provided by the same company thrice failed so miserably, while carrying actual passengers! Fact is, they did not perform as required by the FRA, either. But it took the life of 36 people in three accidents, to find that out!
You may see what looks like a European passenger car on this continent, but the resemblance is only skin deep. Flimsy structural designs so common in Europe, will never be allowed. Indeed, since the WMATA tragedy, our government has acted, via the FTA and FRA working together, to toughen up the flimsy passenger car designs used at such places as BART, WMATA, etc; which resemble many European passenger cars in their design methods. And yes, it might add weight to these cars (doesn't have to, but it could). But the carnage MUST STOP.
The only European design that I believe may be able to pass such an FRA crash test, given a few minor corrections, is the TGV. The German ICE train, on the other hand, is an abysmal failure, safety wise. Not only is its control system flawed, but structurally it is not even as strong as an airliner; the result being that its first two major accidents resembled an airplane crash, with hundreds dead. Each!
Its first major accident, was a derailment caused by a broken wheel flange, and resulted in most of the train sideswiping an overpass abutment at approx 180kph. Well over one hundred died, as the cars all disintegrated into piles of scrap metal! No PTS or ERTMS (ETCS) could have prevented that! Not even in the Wildest dreams of the NTSB. Compare that to the performance of Amtrak heritage cars on the Colonial, which sideswiped a Conrail light engine move at a similar speed. 16 people died, 40 were injured sufficient to be hospitalized, and 529 passengers were unhurt.
But that's not all, the German version of the vaunted ERTMS has hazardous design flaws, which have been known about for about a decade now. They were discovered in two fatal accidents. At last I heard, the German Federal Railway (i.e. the German Government) had declined to fix them, considering them to be minor flaws, despite that two people had died already.
The nature of these flaws was that at any time (and every time) an unusual but inevitable set of circumstances combined, the ERTMS (ETCS)would allow multiple trains into the same area without restrictions, inevitable causing an accident. This is the not result of any system failure, but is because of the the way the system was set up. The Dutch, Italian and Spanish ERTMS (ETCS) systems also have known flaws, where they can fail in unsafe ways.
But before we condemn the European train control system (ETCS - sometimes called ERTMS), we should look closer to home, at the flaws in the proposed American PTS, which are already known to thousands of railways signal engineers and maintainers throughout the United States.
PTS as now conceived is seriously flawed, and will be for many years to come. But the politicians are not listening to the experts; but instead to greedy corporations, who have already compromised even the NTSB. Moreover, it is doomed as now envisioned anyway, as the FCC is currently unable to grant the necessary radio bandwidth, and foresees no possibility any time soon. Sufficient bandwidth is simply not now available!
The most common proposed applications of PTS rely upon GPS (radio ranging technology), to determine where a given train is, before it is commanded. But to be as safe as existing cab signal technology, which it is replacing, it must attain an extremely high certainty level as to where a train is, and what track it is on, before PTS commands can be acted upon. This simply cannot be done with the current state of the art - not even close! The closest we come to, is around +/- 350ft with an acceptable certainty level, and that's with stationary beacons, not moving satellites. That's why not even the patent holder of radio ranging technology, which GPS relies upon, is willing to certify its use for any safety critical purpose.
But not to worry, a better precedent has already been set, because the FRA has already certified a system relying on long proven cab signal technology, to be in compliance with the law mandating PTS; that of the UTA's 90 mile Frontrunner commuter system. There is now a considerable amount talk of doing the same everywhere. So just like that, all four problems holding up PTS (inadequate safety, non-inter-operability, lack of radio spectrum, extreme cost), could be solved immediately; finally permitting what should have happened decades ago, to finally occur. But don't expect that to happen without a big fight, unless congress starts listening to the experts, rather than to a railroad vendor's lobbyists.
This is possible since a coded signal traveling through the rails has the natural advantage of being confined to single fixed track circuit. Therefore, knowing the exact location of the train is no longer necessary, nor is a myriad frequencies for spread spectrum radio. Moreover, cab signals long ago attained iner-operability. All that is necessary to make a cab signal system compliant, is to replace the "forestalling lever" with continuous automatic braking supervision and enforcement; and the rearrangement of coding scheme already in place in most track circuits. Provision to signal the final stop at a signal or a block boundary without any signal at all, must also be provided. But these things cost orders of magnitude less than PTS is costing.
There is no need to rely less safe upon European technology, nor to rely upon flawed American technology either. But the plain fact is, that the Europeans simply have a very different perspective on how safe do you need to be. Occasional loss of life seems to be acceptable to European governments, even if it could have been prevented.
But not so here! - Most ordinary Americans see things very differently; and for decades upon decades, have demanded that their government do all that is possible to prevent injury and death from train accidents. But note that the audacity of citizens demanding anything from their government, is a relatively new concept to the ordinary European, as is the concept that it even is "their" government.
Europeans will eventually come around - on both counts. In the meantime, Americans need to stand their ground. Otherwise, what they would really be giving into, is pure and simple corporate greed, that doesn't want to play by the rules. Any rules!
OPB
