Amtrak passenger deaths are rare despite concerns over infrastructure

Passenger deaths and train derailments are extremely rare on Amtrak despite major concern about aging infrastructure in the the rail system's busy Northeast Corridor, federal records and reports show.

Just 158 Amtrak passengers have been killed since 1975, according to Federal Railroad Administration records, and many of those deaths are caused by passengers falling off or jumping from trains.

Most Amtrak-related deaths involve trespassers who wander onto tracks and are hit by trains, sometimes in acts of suicide, rather than from rare derailments such as the Amtrak crash in Philadelphia on Tuesday in which seven passengers died.

Passengers represent just 4% of the 3,744 Amtrak-related deaths since 1975, FRA records show. Of the 119 Amtrak deaths in 2014, 108 involved trespassers.

Tuesday's derailment could draw attention to the aging rail infrastructure that supports the nation's busiest rail corridor, between Washington and New York, which carries 750,000 passengers per day.

A federal commission warned in early 2013 that the 457-mile Northeast Corridor needs billions of dollars in repairs and upgrades on tracks and equipment that in some places are more than 100 years old.

The 81-mile stretch between Philadelphia and Newark, which includes the site of Tuesday's derailment, "suffers from aging electrical infrastructure that is highly susceptible to failure," the federal Northeast Corridor advisory commission wrote in a January 2013 report that called for $52 billion in improvements over 20 years.

The sagging rail system has become particularly problematic as Amtrak ridership has grown following the Sept. 11 attacks, which prompted many travelers to switch from airplanes to Amtrak trains. The advisory commission said that in 2011, 75% of travelers taking rail or airplanes between Washington and New York now use Amtrak, compared with just 37% in 2001.

The Northeast Corridor rail lines are shared by Amtrak, eight commuter railroads, including the Philadelphia area's SEPTA system, and four freight railroads.

A follow-up report by the commission in September 2014 said that so little money was being spent on repairs and upgrades that "the backlog actually increases rather than decreases on an annual basis." The report said that "funding availability is the greatest obstacle" to making improvements and warned the federal money -- the main source for infrastructure improvements -- is projected to decline over the next four years as one-time federal grants are depleted.

At a Senate hearing last week held in Newark, commission Chairman James Redeker said the corridor's infrastructure is "deteriorating and reaching the practical limits of its capacity to carry additional passengers."

Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., head of the House Transportation Committee, said at a hearing Wednesday on rail regulation that lawmakers would "take a serious look at" what caused the Amtrak accident Tuesday.

"Obviously it's a horrific accident," Shuster said. "It's something we haven't seen like that in some time."

"It's critical we find out exactly what happened up there," he said.

"While we don't yet know the exact cause, we unfortunately see thousands of examples each year in which obsolete infrastructure puts lives and property at risk – from bridge collapses, to pipeline explosions, to breached levees," David Raymond, CEO of the American Council of Engineering Companies, said in a statement.

"At a time when Congress is actually contemplating cuts to Amtrak, and is failing to address larger funding needs to upgrade the nation's roads, bridges, airports and water systems, we all need to recognize that the nation's infrastructure is at a crisis point and must be dealt with seriously," he said.

One of the National Transportation Safety Board's main safety recommendations for trains is to have automatic braking, called positive train control, for a train traveling too fast for conditions along a section of track. But the cost of upgrading tracks and trains with the equipment has prevented the adoption of positive train control by a congressional deadline set for the end of 2015.

"Based on what we know right now, we feel that had such a system been installed on this section of track, this accident would not have occurred," said Robert Sumwalt, an NTSB board member investigating the accident.

"The train was going 106 mph just before the derailment, Sumwalt said. The train derailed on a curve where the speed limit is 50 mph, after traveling along track posted for 80 mph, he said.

Sumwalt said "Amtrak throughout a good bit of the Northeast corridor" has Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement System for automated train braking.

"However, it's not installed where the accident occurred," Sumwalt said. "Congress has mandated that it be installed by the end of this year. We are very keen on positive train control."

Rail crashes historically represent a small portion of transportation accidents nationwide, but rail fatalities have been rising in recent years. Overall transportation fatalities declined 3% from 2012 to 2013, to a total 34,678, the NTSB announced in February.

But rail deaths rose 6% during that period, from 840 to 891, with the vast majority trespassers along the tracks, according to the board.

Meanwhile, the number of Amtrak derailments was relatively stable during that period, from 27 in 2011 to 28 last year, according to FRA.

One of the deadliest Amtrak accidents happened in September 1993 near Mobile, Ala. An Amtrak train bound from Los Angeles to Miami plunged into the water off the Big Bayou Canot bridge after a towboat struck the bridge in dense fog, according to NTSB.

Fuel tanks ruptured and caught fire. Out of 220 people aboard the train, 42 passengers and five crewmembers died, and 103 were injured.

Other Amtrak crashes in more recent years, according to a report by the Surface Transportation Board, include:

• October 2014, an Amtrak train collided with a truck on U.S. Route 421 in Indiana, injuring 24.

• February 2012, the Amtrak Wolverine from Pontiac, Mich., to Chicago, struck a truck stalled on tracks, injuring six people.

• July 2011, an Amtrak Downeaster heading from Boston to Portland, Maine, struck a truck, killing the truck driver and setting the engine and one passenger car on fire.

• June 2011, an inattentive driver of a truck with faulty brakes struck a California-bound train in the Nevada desert, which sparked a fire, according to NTSB. The truck driver, train conductor and four passengers died, and 15 passengers and one crewmember were injured.