Causes of Railroad Accidents

Since January of 2007 there have been over 230 railroad accidents reported in Alabama alone, including 25 fatalities. Numbers this high come as a surprise to many, due largely to the fact that many accidents do not make the news. Many of these accidents occur in remote areas or in train yards that are not highly visible to the general public. The plain fact of it is this: unless such train accidents are catastrophic such as the September 12, 2008 collision in Los Angeles that killed 25, most people will never hear about them. The major railroad corporations would like to keep it this way.

We hear about train/automobile collisions, train/train collisions, and major derailments that affect the general population, but the majority of train-related accidents affect employees of the railroad companies. Here is a recent Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) statistical breakdown of the causes of railroad accidents:

· Human error 38% - This includes any number of things; operator fatigue, other operator errors (speeding, drug or alcohol use, improper engine operation resulting in boiler explosion, failure to use signaling devices such as horns or lights), signalman and routing errors, negligence on the part of maintenance personnel, rail inspectors, or railroad security, automobilist/cyclist/pedestrian attempting to outrun a train, pedestrian hopping a moving train, equipment vandalism or any other deliberate acts.

· Defective track 35% - Includes track that is improperly designed or laid, and poorly designed roadway/railway intersections.

· Defective equipment 12% - Includes faulty mechanical design of train engine or train cars, braking systems, track switching equipment.

· Defective signaling devices 2% - Defective horns, lighting, or any other signaling that occurs at railroad/roadway intersections.

· Miscellaneous 13% - This includes civil engineering errors such as bridge or tunnel collapse, embankment washouts due to flood, extreme weather and other “acts of god.”

Of these causes, the two biggest threats to safety are poor maintenance and operator fatigue. Some figures indicate that the last 20 years have seen a 50% reduction in the number of railroad maintenance workers. While the implementation of new technology may be responsible for some of this reduction, cost-cutting and profit maximization on the part of the railroad corporations likely has much more to do with it. By FRA law, train operators are now limited to 12-hour shifts. This may reduce the number of fatigue-related accidents, but it is by no means enough to eliminate the risk completely.