by Rafael
The LA Times has published an article on Metrolink's safety record, charting the 244 grade crossings deaths on its far-flung network over the past 15 years. On average, that works out to more than one a month.
Source: LA Times Sep 26 2009
While it is true that Metrolink has suffered safety lapses, most notoriously the case of a train engineer who was texting on a cell phone when he should have been paying attention to trackside signals at Chatsworth, it is also true that the agency has to operate on a shoestring budget. The article complains bitterly about a corporate culture that supposedly prioritizes ridership growth over grade crossing safety, comparing it to MTA. That agency is far better funded precisely because it has higher ridership. Metrolink is caught in a Catch-22.
The article also cites the example of a confused elderly lady driver who made a right turn at the Buena Vista Street intersection in Burbank. When the crossing gate came down on her car, she panicked and stepped on the accelerator. Tragically, she was killed in the ensuing train crash. Metrolink concluded it was a clear case of driver error and have made only minimal changes to the intersection in response to the fatality. Without additional public funding, there's not a whole lot it can do.
Up in the SF peninsula, Caltrain has a program for rail safety enforcement, but this public outreach effort hasn't made a significant dent in the grim statistics. It seems that in addition to suicidal persons, there will always be a small contingent of motorists who either don't know how to behave at railroad grade crossings or flout the rules.
What both commuter rail services have run up against is that the only proven way to eliminate or at least massively reduce grade crossing fatalities is full grade separation plus sturdy fences for the rail corridor.
Caltrans did promise to grade separate the aforementioned Buena Vista Street in Burbank against the single rail track in the context of a project to widen I-5, but that's just one one grade crossing among hundreds. Elsewhere in Southern California, a large number of grade crossings were eliminated or had their rail traffic sharply reduced by the Alameda Corridor project. More are either planned or under construction in the context of the Alameda Corridor East project in the San Gabriel Valley. For its part, OCTA is lobbying Congress to close a funding gap for 19 new grade separations on the BNSF Transcon line in Orange County, a critical artery for getting goods in and out of the LA and Long Beach harbors.
One of the reasons the California HSR project is so expensive is that it will feature all-new fully grade separated tracks. In the SF peninsula, part of the Central Valley and in the Lancaster-Anaheim section of the Metrolink service network, the starter line will run immediately next to existing regional and commuter as well as freight trains. While AB3034, the bill made law by the passage of prop 1A(2008) last November, does not explicitly require CHSRA to grade separate any but the HSR tracks, also including adjacent tracks for legacy services should be a high priority wherever that is technically and economically feasible and, it is not already done or planned in another context.
Voters/taxpayers should demand nothing less, even if it doing so entails exercising strictly limited and generous eminent domain against a relatively small numbers of businesses and home owners. This applies in Fullerton just as much as it does in the SF peninsula, Fresno, Bakersfield and elsewhere in the state. The benefits extend well beyond safety, e.g. to rail corridor capacity, reduced dependence on oil in the transportation sector plus the elimination of train horns and warning bells.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
LA Times On Metrolink Grade Crossing Safety
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Keys to the Magic Kingdom
Anaheim ARTIC on YouTube
The hoped-for quid pro quo for grade separation is that BNSF will offer CHSRA enough land to run dedicated tracks between Redondo Junction - the northern terminus of the successful Alameda Corridor - and Fullerton. To date, BNSF has been receptive to CHSRA overtures, but that was in the Central Valley. The company's ROW between Richmond harbor and Bakersfield is arguably not fully utilized, much of the alignment is single track.
The "91" line, named - this is Southern California for you - after the adjacent freeway through the Santa Ana river valley, is a whole different ball of wax. It is the only ROW out of California that BNSF actually owns outright. All its other routes out of the state depend on trackage rights on competitor UPRR's network. Up to a point, those could be restricted or canceled without falling foul of anti-trust laws. The price for the trackage rights is also subject to change.
Therefore, we should expect BNSF to take a much tougher line in negotiations regarding the sale of part of the "91" ROW. The Alameda corridor currently carries about freight 40 trains a day, but sooner or later that may double, even triple. With prescient investment in modern signaling, diligent track maintenance and professional operations, two track ought to be enough for BNSF to handle its share of that. But what if there is an accident or an earthquake. UPRR has multiple rights of way that it can use to re-route its trains. The companies may well have secured mutual emergency trackage rights on each other's lines. Still, BNSF risks putting itself at something of a competitive disadvantage if it sells part of its most precious asset in California. Once you give up a right of way, you never get it back. Not ever. BNSF may want to be a good corporate citizen and it knows that grade separation will reduce the risk of accident-related disruptions to its own service. But does that mean CHSRA will get to lay down tracks? We'll see.
Between Fullerton and the OC/SD county line near San Onofre, the right of way is owned by the Southern California Regional Railway Authority (SCRRA) which operates Metrolink. Amtrak Pacific Surfliner and some BNSF freight trains also use this alignment. BNSF owns the connector that runs north from Orange to the "91" line as well as the bit from National City to San Diego. The harbor down there is not a container terminal, it appears to be used for importing cars. All of these trains use FRA-compliant locomotives and rolling stock.
The SCRRA ROW in Orange County is quite narrow, really only wide enough for two tracks in most places. Widening it via eminent domain for the sake of laying down dedicated HSR tracks would be massively unpopular and ruinously expensive. The plan is therefore to seek FRA approval to operate mixed traffic, i.e. to add a limited number of non-compliant bullet trains to the mix via time separations guaranteed by signaling upgrades that prevent engineers from running red lights by accident. Top speed for this last stretch would be down to 79mph, but it's so short that presents no object. After last year's disaster at Chatsworth, HR 2095 mandated the installation of positive train control technology on busy rail corridor and those carrying hazardous materials by 2015.
The request for the mixed traffic exemption will be rolled into that for a "rule of special applicability" that CHSRA will anyhow need for its entire network. FRA currently has no rules at all for passenger train operations at speeds in excess of 150mph, nor any for the safe design and operation of 25kV AC overhead catenary systems. The agency had already begun to draft such rules for Florida HSR some years ago but they were shelved when Gov. Jeb Bush killed that project. They will soon be dusted off and completed, presumably many will be cribbed from the regulations Asian and European countries have already drawn up.
However, there's always a chance that one or more domestic - or at least North American - would-be HSR vendors will emerge. They might seek to gain a competitive advantage by getting FRA to draft rules that would force more established global players to modify their designs. That would be foolish from a safety/reliability/cost point of view, but protectionism-by-red-tape is one of the oldest games in town. Bureaucrats, too, love to draft special rules under the guise of "special conditions" that supposedly exist in the territory they are responsible for. In the US, some freight operators may well seek some regulatory overkill to push back against states that suddenly want to acquire part of their ROW, just so they can benefit from the federal largesse that is now being heaped - ok, spooned - onto high speed rail projects. Well-connected organizations that oppose HSR in principle, a particular project or impacts on their back yard might also try to lobby FRA, in the hope that this might kill or at least delay HSR implementations. We should be vigilant and push back against such selfish efforts.
The rules for California will set a national precedent for both true bullet trains running at well over 125mph on dedicated tracks and, for rapid rail below that speed, with freight and passenger trains each using the equipment best suited to their business model yet sharing a ROW and even tracks. Let's hope President Obama and Secr. of Transportation LaHood realize the importance of FRA's rulemaking on HSR in the years to come.
Clem Tillier over at the Caltrain-HSR compatibility blog has published the following diagram in his analysis of SF Peninsula Rail Traffic in 2030. It shows statewide train traffic on the HSR network, based on CHSRA's 2008 business plan. It does not include non-HSR trains that HSR will share track with in sections such as Fullerton-Anaheim. 
Hi-Resolution Version
For Anaheim, CHSRA is apparently forecasting 2-3 trains in each direction per hour during a six-hour peak window. Of those, 60% would head up to the SF peninsula and 40% to Sacramento. There appear to be no plans to terminate trains in Los Angeles. Today, Metrolink's Orange county line between LA and Oceanside is served by up to 3 trains per hour each way during rush hour, but far fewer during the day. Amtrak Pacific Surfliner adds one more. If there were a 100% increase in legacy train operations by 2030, we'd still only be talking about 10-11 passenger trains running on the existing dual track alignment between Fullerton and Anaheim. That's a 6-minute headway, quite busy but not extremely so, provided that all trains run pretty much on time. I don't know how many freight trains run through Anaheim station today, let alone in 2030. That's a wildcard.
In a comment on the March 10 post entitled LA - San Diego: Quo Vadis?, yeson1a suggested that CHSRA might want to keep it simple and stupid (KISS): continue on to San Diego by staying on the 91 corridor from Fullerton through Corona and switching to the I-15 median there. This option has not been studied by CHSRA and would not be considered unless securing a ROW past Ontario airport proves impossible or too expensive. Yeson1a's alternative would leverage the investment already made for LA Union Station - Fullerton in phase I. A connector from Anaheim to Atwood would permit a capacity-defined subset of HSR trains to detour from the main line to Anaheim. If desired, some of the rest could stop at a no-frills auxiliary station in Fullerton. Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs would then only be served by some of the trains that make the detour into Anaheim. The route would probably feature and intermodal with Metrolink in Corona, with the option for a regular secondary station in Lake Elsinore, though Murietta would be fairly close by.
View Larger Map
The principal downside of this idea is that neither Ontario airport not Riverside are on the route. However, a possible phase II/III spur up to Las Vegas could give the downtown areas of Riverside, San Bernardino and Victorville HSR stations. Passengers hailing from Northern California would likely prefer a shorter spur off the starter line at Mojave. Perhaps both will end up getting built someday, with tracks joining up in Barstow. Such a full build-out would, however, require quite a bit of magic dust from the money fairy.
