This has go to stop: No more delays on railway safety

Although the investigation is ongoing into the tragic Amtrak passenger train crash in Cayce, we knew immediately that a rail switch had been improperly set, diverting the Amtrak into a siding occupied by a stationary CSX train.

It’s not the first time South Carolina has seen such an accident: The 2005 disaster in Graniteville was the result of a rail switch left in the wrong position. In that accident, a Norfolk Southern freight train collided with a parked freight train, rupturing a tank car filled with poisonous chlorine gas. Nine people died as a result of chlorine gas inhalation, and 5,400 residents were evacuated for days. Two years later, a mill adjacent to the collision site closed, citing unrepairable damage to equipment due to chlorine-induced oxidation.

The reason we’re snarled in train traffic is the same as why that crash happened

In 2008, following a collision between a passenger train and a freight train in California that claimed 25 lives, Congress passed a law to mandate that railroads install Positive Train Control.

This remarkable technology is designed to prevent the movement of a train through an incorrectly positioned switch, such as with the Cayce and Graniteville crashes, as well as train-to-train collisions, overspeed derailments, incursions of established work zones.

The original deadline for installation was the end of 2015. But when it became apparent that railroads could not meet that deadline, Congress extended it to December 2018.

On Feb. 15, I testified before Congress on the criticality of meeting the December deadline. But many of the nation’s railroads will not meet the new deadline, but will instead seek a further extension to the end of 2020.

Since Congress originally acted in 2008, we have investigated 22 accidents that would have been prevented with this system in place. Those accidents claimed 24 lives, injured 420 and resulted in $130 million in property damage.

As evidenced by the Graniteville and Cayce tragedies, December’s deadly Amtrak derailment in Washington state,and others before it, we are at continued risk for more such accidents for each day that goes without Positive Train Control.

This is an unacceptable risk to rail passengers and crew and the communities that surround railroad tracks.

The State publishes a cross section of the letters we receive from South Carolinians in order to provide a forum for our community and also to allow our community to get a good look at itself, for good or bad. The letters represent the views of the letter writers, not necessarily of The State.

This story was originally published February 20, 2018 at 8:08 PM with the headline "This has go to stop: No more delays on railway safety."