The Acela Fiasco
Amtrak's botched attempt at a high-speed train is a good case study in the problems caused by the FRA. As originally designed, the Acela was supposed to provide high-speed rail service on the Northeast Corridor (NEC) between Boston, New York, and Washington DC with speeds as high as 150 mph.

In order to procure the world's best off-the-shelf train for the least amount of money, Amtrak decided to buy an existing design from a European or Japanese manufacturer, who have decades of experience building and operating high-speed trains. The winner of this competition was a consortium of Bombadier and Alstom (the French TGV builder).

Then, in 1999 with Acela planning fully underway, the FRA pulled the rug out by issuing regulations for high-speed rail service requiring trains to withstand 800,000 pounds force without deformation. The 800,000 figure is an arbitrary number dating back to the 1920s; this mandate has since been increased to 1 million pounds.

The buffering requirement confounded Bombadier. Train weight is of crucial importance as it affects the amount of track wear, noise, and energy costs. To meet the buffering regulation, the train would have to be significantly bulked-up. The result was a highspeed train nearly twice as heavy as its European counterparts. As such, the Acela has been described variously as a tank-on-wheels and a bank-vault-on-wheels. Indeed, an overweight train like Acela would be banned from the European high speed rail network.

Because the extra weight put so much strain on the train body (which was never designed to handle such loads) trainsets suffered excessive wheel wear, cracks in the yaw damper and brake rotors, and other problems which can probably never be completely fixed. Whereas the original contract called for trains to run 400,000 miles between equipment failures, the Acela can barely manage 20,000 miles.

Buffering Standards
FRA staffers point out that it is unfair to compare US buffering standards with those in Europe because passenger rail in the US has to contend with more (and heavier) freight traffic. Like the soccer-Mom who thinks an SUV provides greater safety, the FRA figures collisions are inevitable and heavier is better. And just as an SUV is a hazard to other road users, the same is true with the Acela. Amtrak bitterly complained that the heavier Acela trains would be potentially lethal against lighter commuter trains on the NEC in the event of a collision.

And heaver trains are a lot more expensive to operate, which means higher fares and fewer trains running to fewer places. This in turn means travelers often resort to driving cars, which is 10-100 times more dangerous than rail travel. In other words, even if one accepts the premise that the excessive US buffering standards make train travel safer, they may in fact be counterproductive by diverting potential train riders to automobiles, causing many times more highway fatalities.

The situation is particularly absurd when one looks at the Long Island Commuter Railroad (LIRR) in New York City, which has no freight traffic and a modern, automatic train control system to prevent collisions. Technically, it is still a freight railroad subject to FRA rules. Thus, the new M-7 railcars purchased by the New York MTA weigh an astonishing 125,000 lbs -- twice the weight of a non-FRA compliant BART car on the off-chance an LIRR might collide with a 100-ton coal train in Manhattan.

Train Safety in the Rest of the World
European and Japanese rail operators believe the best way to survive a train accident is to simply not have one in the first place. Their design philosophy is to rely on modern signaling and proper maintenance to prevent collisions and derailments.

There are also smarter, better ways to improve accident survivability than just running heavier trains. One ingenious solution is the articulated cars used by the French TGV and Spanish Talgo. Whereas traditional railcars are joined by a simple coupler, an articulated train (as shown in the diagram) physically connects two railcars to the same truck so that they function as a single unit. This not only saves weight (by eliminating one truck per car) but increases the stability of the trainset. Also, it significantly reduces the chances of the train jack-knifing which has been credited with saving lives on a number of occasions (see TGV accidents).

Implications for the Bay Area
Assuming California's budget mess can be fixed, the California High Speed Rail Commission (CAHSR) will build a 224 mph Los Angeles-San Francisco rail service. Because it may run on conventional tracks in urban areas, the trains might have to satisfy FRA Tier II rules. Officially, the CAHSR has no problem with the rules, but many question how the system could achieve operational self-sufficiency. An Acela-type train would incur prohibitively high track maintenance and electricity costs.

As well, the FRA rules could make it more expensive to implement the "eBART" type DMU extensions currently being studied by BART. A DMU is basically a bus on steel wheels. In Europe there are thousands of low-cost DMUs providing rail service to remote towns and villages, with populations as small as 4000 persons. It would be hard to provide a similar type of service in the US as long as the FRA requires DMUs to lug around tons of deadweight.

In both Europe and Japan, a competitive business exists in the DMU marketplace. But that market is off limits to US transit agencies because the FRA has effectively created a trade embargo. A company like Siemens would incur prohibitively high retooling costs in order to redesign its products for a niche market.

With no manufacturers available, transit agencies wanting to use DMU equipment in the US have had to take extraordinary measures. Sonoma-Marin rail planners, for example, are seriously considering the use of refurbished Budd RDC cars -- which were manufactured some 50 years ago! In effect, they would be building a rolling museum on rails.

13 Budd RDC cars were refurbished for use on the "Trinity Rail Express" in Dallas. With modern European and Japanese equipment off-limits, this antiquated 1950's design is all that is available to transit agencies running under FRA rules.

Would it make any difference to these drivers if the locomotive were also blasting a 100 decibel horn? The FRA seemed to think so. Traditionally, horn blasting regulations were determined locally, but in 1995 the FRA began a rulemaking process to Federalize regulations and in the process dramatically increase horn blasting by going after so-called "Quiet Zones" -- i.e. places where whistle blowing was prohibited. Armed with a study that showed as many as 3(!) fatalities a year could be prevented, the FRA proposed rule would only allow Quiet Zones exemptions at crossings that had been improved with "four-quadrant" gates and curb medians.

In Illinois, which has 900 of the nearly 2000 whistle bans nationwide, cash-strapped local government would have to spend $116-234 million to meet the Federal mandate. Ironically, the FRA's own numbers show that in Illinois, collisions at crossings with hornblowing bans were actually 4.5% less frequent than at crossings where horns were sounded.

Many communities throughout the US sprung up along rail lines. In the greater Chicago area (a major rail hub) some 1.2 million residents live within one quarter mile of a grade crossing. In Beverly, MA (a suburb of Boston) the lifting of the horn ban on the city's 17 crossings would result in an average of two horns blowing every minute of every day.

Legitimate homeowner complaints over horn blasting makes it difficult to build political support for increased rail service. In her testimony before Congress, Rita Mullins, Mayor of Palatine, Illinois, notes the conflicting policies between Federal agencies: "In order to clean our air, reduce auto congestion, and improve quality of life, several federal agencies including the EPA, HUD and the Federal Transit Administration are encouraging Transit Oriented Development. The idea behind this type of development is to bring residents closer to train stations, so that they can use mass transportation, and so that downtown revitalization can occur. At the same time, the proposed train horn rule in effect is discouraging the development community and our residents from locating around transit. A great example of how this inconsistency in policy plays out is in the Village of Arlington Heights, Illinois. In the last several years, this village directly to the east of my community has invested over $30 million of its own money to spur transit-oriented development in its downtown. 330 higher density residential units are currently under construction, and an additional 300 are planned. 45 new businesses have moved into the downtown development to support the new residential community. Arlington Heights Mayor Arlene Mulder tells me she has spoken to residents who have purchased condominiums next to the train station who tell her they do not want to stay if faced with train horns around the clock. And they will hear them around the clock. Both freight and commuter trains run through her village and mine an average of seventy times daily. Developments such as this should be encouraged, not squelched by conflicting federal policies."

-Eric McCaughrin

Links

• US DOT Secretary Rodney Slater praises new Tier II crash standards
• GAO Report on Acela Problems
• The Shasta Route - Explanation of curve speeds in this interesting web page on a proposed Sacramento-Portland passenger rail service.