Civil Engineer: Blame Communication Breakdown For Amtrak Crash
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Delaware, Allan Zarembski, says failures on the part of Amtrak personnel are what led to the fatal crash in Chester over the weekend.
Zarembski, during an interview Dom Giordano on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, said someone should have been aware maintenance was being performed on the track well before the train arrived.
"There should have been a red signal in front of that zone and any train that was on that track should have been stopped, waiting until they get the clearance to go ahead in that location. If it was on that track, that protocol was violated in some way. The unusual part of this also is these appear to be experienced maintenance away people"
He blames a communication breakdown for causing the deadly accident.
"The standard procedure among every railroad in the world is that maintenance workers and, particularly, a piece of maintenance away equipment cannot get a go on the track without the permission of the dispatcher, the person who is responsible for running the trains and knowing which trains are on what track and telling trains where to stop and where to go."
Zarembski stated that investigators will be looking for anything they can find to shed light on what exactly went wrong to cause the incident.
"My understanding is that they're going to look at the train records. I believe that Amtrak has installed forward facing cameras. I know after last year's derailment, I remember there was a commitment that Amtrak [would] install forward facing cameras on the trains. In fact, if they had a forward facing camera, that should provide a lot of information."
