ENLARGE
Emergency workers and Amtrak personnel inspect a derailed Amtrak train in Philadelphia on Wednesday.
Photo:
Lucas Jackson/Reuters
The Federal Railroad Administration on Saturday said it ordered Amtrak to take immediate steps to improve safety along its Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston, including modifying a signal system that safety experts said could have averted the deadly derailment in Philadelphia this week.
The FRA instructed the national passenger railroad to reconfigure signals on a section of northbound tracks near a sharp curve at Frankford Junction where Tuesday’s crash occurred. Eight people were killed and more than 200 injured.
Part of a system called “automatic train control,” these track circuits have been used by Amtrak and other railroads for decades. They trigger an alarm in the cab of a train that exceeds speed limits and can cut power to those that don’t slow down to prevent a derailment or crash.
Identical circuits were protecting southbound trains at Frankford Junction but not northbound trains. Northeast Regional Train 188 was heading north to New York when it derailed. Investigators have said the train was traveling more than 100 miles an hour, twice the posted maximum speed on the tracks.
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Anatomy of a Catastrophe
National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt said on Thursday that such a track circuit would have prevented the Amtrak crash.
Joseph Boardman, Amtrak’s president and chief executive officer, said the change would be complete by the time Amtrak resumes service between Philadelphia and New York, expected early next week. “It’s not a major cost at this point in time,” Mr. Boardman said. “We’re going to get it done pretty quickly.”
The FRA also ordered Amtrak to analyze safety risks at all of its curves on its busy Northeast Corridor and immediately install speed-control technology in areas where speed limits are significantly higher in advance of curves that have slower restrictions.
Amtrak must also add speed limit signs throughout the Northeast Corridor under the FRA’s instructions, which are expected to be formalized in coming days as an emergency order, according to the railroad regulator.
“These are just initial steps, but we believe they will immediately improve safety for passengers on the Northeast Corridor,” Sarah Feinberg, the FRA’s acting administrator, said.
Mr. Boardman said he didn’t immediately know how many or which curves in Amtrak’s system might need reconfigured signals.
A person familiar with Amtrak’s track infrastructure said that among the areas that are likely to receive scrutiny are sharp approaches to the Amtrak station in Wilmington, Del., the approach to a rail bridge at Pelham Bay in the Bronx section of New York City and a pair of S-curves in Baltimore.
The vulnerable track sections are all in parts of the Northeast Corridor not yet covered by a more advanced type of signaling system, known as positive train control, which Amtrak has already installed on parts of its territory. Federal law requires all U.S. passenger railroads and major freight railroads to have positive train control systems in operation by the end of this year, but few are expected to make that deadline.
ENLARGE
After the accident, Mr. Boardman said Amtrak set up speed-control signals only on the southbound tracks at Frankford Junction because trains heading into the curve from that direction could be traveling at speeds as high as 110 mph, compared with only 80 mph in the northbound direction.
Tuesday’s derailment has prompted Amtrak to reconsider its assumptions, he said.
Mr. Boardman said Amtrak would examine whether it could turn on some components of PTC earlier, obviating the need for reconfiguring the existing system. “PTC is much better,” he said. “If we can get that done, we have a much safer system.”
The FRA has taken a tough line with railroads after recent safety lapses, most notably Metro-North, the commuter network serving New York City, its northern suburbs and parts of western Connecticut. In 2013, a Metro-North train sped into a curve at more than twice the posted maximum speed in an area where existing signals hadn’t been programmed to prevent such an incident. Four passengers were killed and more than 60 injured in that crash.
Afterward, the FRA instructed Metro-North to modify its signal system to protect any area where the maximum speed dropped by 20 miles an hour or more. The railroad quickly installed additional track circuits in those areas, including at the site of the crash.
Photos: Amtrak Train Crashes in Philadelphia
Train 188 was heading to New York from Washington
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Write to Ted Mann at ted.mann@wsj.com and Andrew Tangel at Andrew.Tangel@wsj.com
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