Sifting the facts of the recent collision between four Amtrak locomotives and a Conrail coal train near Chase, the one clear lesson is that those who ignore the past aren't the only ones condemned to repeat it.
In the April 12 collision, the Amtrak locomotives rammed the center of a 125-car Conrail freight train. It occurred perhaps 300 feet from the site of the 1987 wreck of Amtrak's Newport News-to-Boston Colonial -- which remains the worst accident in Amtrak's history.
Sixteen people died and another 175 were hurt four years ago after the desperately-braking Colonial, pulling 12 passenger cars more than 100 miles per hour, rammed three Conrail freight engines in a shower of shredded metal and burning diesel oil.
Although there were no deaths and far fewer injuries April 12, both accidents bear striking similarities. Both involved Conrail and Amtrak at a switch just south of the Gunpowder River bridge. In both cases, critical safety equipment was not operating properly -- warning whistles and lights on the Conrail -- engines in 1987, the brakes on the Amtrak locomotives April 12. In both accidents, the initial evidence pointed to human error as the primary cause.
The 1987 crash triggered a public outcry and a series of reforms by Amtrak, and it helped pressure Congress to pass drug testing legislation for transportation workers and others.
But in what might seem like a perverse twist, the evidence so far suggests that those changes had little, if any, effect on what residents of the communities near the site ironically dubbed "Chase II, The Sequel."
And the one initiative that clearly would have prevented the accident -- the total separation of freight and passenger train operations in the Chase area -- was not done, probably because of the massive expense involved.
One Amtrak official has called the accident "a bizarre coincidence." Dr. Roger A. Horn, a Johns Hopkins University professor whose daughter was killed in the 1987 Colonial wreck, said pre-trip checkouts of Amtrak and Conrail equipment should be improved, but admits that improving safety procedures has little impact if no one follows them.
Other railroad experts said Chase II seemed designed to demonstrate that if something can go wrong, it will.
The following fixes seemed to have little effect:
* After the Colonial wreck, the U.S. Department of Transportation ordered automatic braking systems installed on all freight and commuter equipment operating in the Northeast corridor.
