Thoughts on a Train Crash

Our little hometown made national news this week due to a train derailment that resulted in the deaths of 11 people. The tragedy is that the crash occurred because someone who was too inept to successfully commit suicide allowed his SUV to remain on the tracks where he had intended to meet his demise by risking the lives of hundreds of commuters. The shame is that under these exact circumstances, there is no reason why anyone had to lose their life but for the Metrolink practice of "push-pull."

I came up with this argument today before I realized that others smarter than I had already reached the same conclusions. As explained in this article from USA Today, it is a fairly common practice for commuter trains to keep the locomotive at one end of the train, regardless of which direction the train is headed. Thus, at one point in the day, the engine "pushes," and on the return trip it "pulls." The problems with this technique are many. There are dynamic issues of stability (imagine pushing a rope across the floor rather than pulling it) that can exacerbate the potential for a train to derail should the leading car encounter an abnormality in the tracks. There are undoubtedly visibility problems associated with the engineer working from the back of the train. It is said that a locomotive is more capable of shunting aside obstacles on the track, both due to the locomotive's strenght and the "pushing the rope" phenomenon.

To me, an equally significant issue is the fact that a railway car leading the train provides absolutely no crash protection. Pictures of the Glendale wreck show that the leading edge of the lead car was largely demolished. Althought the ensuing derailment (thanks in part to the "pushing the rope" principle) led to injuries throughout the train, no other car exhibited the scale of damage suffered by the lead car. I must assume that the majority of the deaths came from that area of the train.

Driving a train with a passenger car as the lead element is akin to riding on the hood of a car. The passengers have no protection at all, and I suspect that railway cars are not construted with any particular "crush zones" in mind, as is the case with automobiles. In any event, there is no room for a crush zone on a train; the front of the car ends with a door for passage to other cars to which it may be attached.

Had the locomotive struck the stranded car, it is likely that the train would have derailed. However, the brunt of the direct impact would have been taken by the locomotive. Unfortunately, in addition to a derailment, the passengers in the leading car were subjected to the direct collision between the 40 mph train and the 4000 lb SUV. Metrolink and other passenger rail carriers should immediately adopt standards of operation that prohibit the "push-pull" technique. It is simply unconscionable to allow passengers to be exposed to the first risk of injury in the event of a collision.