Government Rejected Sensor System On Nation’s Railroad Bridges in 1981
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The Federal Railroad Administration more than a decade ago decided against installing sensors on railroad bridges that could have detected the damage that apparently resulted in the Amtrak crash that killed at least 47 people here on Wednesday. After a 1979 freight train derailment on a damaged bridge in Devils Slide, Utah, the railroad agency considered placing detection devices on the nation’s 85,000 railroad bridges. “The projected costs far outweigh the benefits,” the agency said in a 1981 report that calculated the system would cost $850 million to install and $85 million a year to maintain. But in the wake of the most deadly train wreck in Amtrak’s history, an Amtrak spokesman said today that he was certain the issue would be reviewed. “When you have a catastrophe like this that kills more than 40 people, it demonstrates the subject should be revisited,” said the spokesman, Cliff Black, although he added that the company had no position on the feasibility of such a system. 3 Bodies Recovered More : query.nytimes.com |