Seating Could Limit Rail Crash Injuries

PUEBLO, Colo. —  Tests by federal safety officials Tuesday showed that reinforced seats in passenger trains can protect people from being thrown about the rail car during an accident.

In a test crash of two passenger rail cars conducted by the Federal Railroad Administration at the Transportation Technology Center, the second car derailed slightly but it appeared that most of the dummies aboard either remained in their seats or near the seat.

In a previous crash test in November, the only dummies that remained in their seats were ones wearing seat belts.

In Tuesday’s test, the seats had stronger reinforcement on their pedestals, and the backs of the seats were constructed differently to absorb the shock of the dummies striking them, engineers said.

The tests are carried out to verify what engineers expect will happen in rail crashes as they try to come up with safer rail cars.

Tuesday’s test was conducted at about 26 mph, but, because the rail cars were crashed into a concrete-reinforced steel wall, the impact was the equivalent of one train hitting another at about 70 mph, engineers said.

“Rail transportation is already a very safe mode of travel. We intend to make it safer,” U.S. Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater said.

Slater and federal, local and state officials witnessed the crash test about 30 miles east of Pueblo.

Inside the cars were 13 crash test dummies in a variety of seat configurations, some wearing seat belts and some not.

In addition to the dummies, there were about 200 other monitoring devices to test the force of the impact and other results, such as derailment and lateral movement of the cars.

Kristine Severson, a mechanical engineer at the Department of Transportation’s Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, said facing the rear offers an advantage to passengers, but only if the seat is well secured.

Next November a test crash will be carried out with a passenger train striking a freight locomotive.