NTSB urges changes after BART track deaths

NTSB urges changes after BART track deaths
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/NTSB-urges-changes-after-BART...
By Henry Lee

2:00 PM

(12-19) 13:59 PST WALNUT CREEK -- Two months after a BART train struck and killed two track workers, federal safety officials on Thursday sought a national ban on the practice the transit agency had used that day, in which the workers were solely responsible for their own safety and had no communication with train drivers.

The National Transportation Safety Board also moved to require rail agencies to use "redundant" technology to avoid disasters, such as automated collision-avoidance systems and devices that workers can use to detect - or halt - approaching trains. The BART workers who died were not given access to such devices.

"Having redundant protection measures in place for track workers is not only a best practice, but common sense," the safety board's chairwoman, Deborah Hersman, wrote in a letter to Peter Rogoff, her counterpart at the Federal Transit Administration. "A positive safety culture is not a solo act - everyone needs to look out for each other."

The letter asked the Federal Transit Administration, which oversees public transit systems, to mandate the changes, which were listed as urgent. It said rail agencies should "eliminate any authorization that depends solely on the roadway worker to provide protection from trains and moving equipment."

BART, which called the practice "simple approval," suspended it in the wake of the Oct. 19 deaths of two workers who were checking a dip in the tracks near Walnut Creek. It's unclear how widespread the practice is nationally.

The safety board is still investigating the BART crash and has not determined the cause.

However, autopsy reports released by the Contra Costa County coroner concluded that neither of the workers - Christopher Sheppard, 58, of Hayward and Laurence Daniels, 66, of Fair Oaks (Sacramento County) - was acting as a lookout as required under BART policy, and had their backs turned to the train that hit them.

The train was operating during a worker strike. It was traveling 60 to 70 mph and was being operated by a manager undergoing training to take over driver duties in the event of an extended walkout, federal investigators said.

BART officials had no immediate comment Thursday on the safety board letter.

Before suspending the simple approval procedure, BART officials had insisted for three decades that workers doing routine track maintenance be solely responsible for their safety, and the agency would not slow down trains traveling through their work areas.

The practice was linked to BART track worker deaths in 2001 and 2008. After the second death, BART modified the policy to require that one member of a work crew serve as a spotter. Now, train operators must slow down through job sites. In some cases, they must halt trains until work is complete, or reroute them around work areas via single-tracking.

A federal law requires, by 2015, that all inter-city railroads and rail passenger carriers implement automated collision-avoidance systems, known as positive train control. Hersman said her agency had been urging the change for decades.

A spokeswoman for Caltrain, Christine Dunn, said Thursday that the agency was working to meet the positive train control deadline. She said it did not leave track workers solely responsible for their own safety.

Henry K. Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: hlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@henryklee