On-track training

NFPA Journal, May/Jun 2000 by Reese, Shelly

Arthur Candenquist is on a whistle-stop tour. But Amtrak's manager of emergency preparedness isn't running for office. He's working to improve emergency responders' understanding of railroads so they can work more effectively and safely.

In a program designed to help emergency response crews prepare for the possibility of a rail accident in the 45 states Amtrak serves, Candenquist and a handful of his colleagues crisscross the country delivering four-hour presentations to firefighters, law enforcement officials, emergency medical technicians, and other emergency response personnel.

Held about 50 times a year, the seminars help the estimated 15,000 agencies and organizations that might respond to a potential Amtrak accident do their jobs more efficiently. While the carrier tends to conduct classes where it can draw participants from an entire region, trainees may include everyone from local volunteer firefighters to National Park Service staff.

Whether Candenquist and his fellow trainers are preaching in South Carolina or South Dakota, their goals remain the same: teach rescuers what to look out for, so they can safely and effectively respond to incidents on and around railroad tracks.

"Providing this training is the least we can do," says Amtrak Safety Engineer Ron Pratt, who helps conduct emergency preparedness sessions. In the event of a derailment or accident, "the safety of our guests, emergency response personnel, and employees are dependent on emergency personnel knowing how to deal with the situation, so there has to be a partnership and that's what the training is about. It's sort of like taking care of the people who take care of us."

A horse of a different color

As common as rail travel in the United States may be-Amtrak transported 21 million customers in 1999-trains can seem like an arcane commodity to some rescue workers.

"In most fire schools [I know of] where extrication is taught, they're generally focused on auto extrication," says Candenquist, whose program reaches more than 1,000 people annually "At most, they're dealing with a school bus or a truck. But those vehicles aren't designed to withstand the critical forces a train is subjected to."

A typical Amtrak sleeper car has 44 berths, weighs about 156,000 pounds (70,760 kilograms), and is designed to withstand an impact force of 800,000 pounds (362,874 kilograms).

"It's basically a high-occupancy building on wheels," he says.

And those wheels move fast. A typical Amtrak train can travel as fast as 125 miles per hour (201 kilometers per hour) and a high-speed train, such as those being introduced in the Northeast this spring, can travel as fast as 150 miles per hour (241 kilometers per hour).

Collectively, those characteristics mean that emergencies involving passenger trains pose a unique problem. Unless rescuers are familiar with the equipment, they may waste a lot of valuable time trying to figure out how to get into the cars and evacuate people.

"You're not going to be able to break our windows, and you're going to waste a lot of time and damage your equipment, trying to get in that way," says Chuck Cooke, safety manager for Amtrak Intercity, the railroad division that handles the middle portion of the country. "There are methods to get into the car in 30 to 60 seconds, but you have to know what you're doing."

During each four-hour session, Candenquist provides emergency crews with an overview of the way railroads, especially passenger trains, operate. In particular, he stresses the importance of communicating with local railroad operators, dispatchers, and the Amtrak Operations Center so responders can be assured rail traffic has been halted before they begin rescue operations.

That may seem rudimentary, but Cooke says it contradicts normal operating procedure for rescue crews.

"In a normal response situation, they're used to being given right of way because of their sirens and lights. But trains can't stop," he says. "It's one of the laws of physics that you can't get a mass moving that quickly to stop short for an emergency vehicle, so emergency crews need to make sure traffic has been stopped. If there's more than one track, they need to know for certain that traffic is stopped on the adjacent track, or they may get themselves into trouble."

In addition to traffic, responders need to be aware of a train's unique hazards. On most Amtrak trains, for example, a 480-volt cable runs from the engine through all the cars to power the heating, air conditioning, ventilation, and electrical supply. Trains operating between New Haven, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C., are powered by 12,000 volts of AC power at 25 cycles, while those traveling between New Haven and Boston use a new 25,000-volt, 60-cycle overhead catenary power system. Those heating and power systems present an electrocution danger to unwary rescuers. Similarly, the high-pressure air system in the train's braking system can produce as much as 140 pounds (63.5 kilograms) of pressure per square inch (6.5 square centimeter). If damaged or uncoupled, those hoses could severely injure an unwitting responder.