Montana train derailment report renews calls for automated systems to detect track problems

abcnews.go.com:

The NTSB is renewing its calls for major freight railroads to equip every locomotive with automated track inspection devices that it believes could have prevented a 2021 train derailment that killed three people in Montana

Federal investigators renewed their recommendation that major freight railroads equip every locomotive with the kind of autonomous sensors that could have caught the track flaws that caused a fatal 2021 Amtrak derailment in northern Montana.

But installing the sensors on the tens of thousands of locomotives in the fleet could be cost prohibitive, and it's not entirely clear if one would have caught the combination of rail flaws that the National Transportation Safety Board said caused the crash near Joplin, Montana, that killed three people and injured 49 others. And rail unions caution that no technology should be a substitute for human inspectors.

The NTSB report laid blame in part on BNSF railroad, which owns the tracks, and “a shortcoming in its safety culture.” But it noted that even if track inspections had been more frequent, the severity of the problems may not have been noticed the day of the crash without devices and technology designed to enhance the inspections.

“It is unlikely that the track deviations would have been detected through the current track inspection process,” the board concluded in the report released Thursday. But «autonomous monitoring systems… have the ability to monitor track conditions and provide real-time condition monitoring that could be used for early identification and mitigation of unsafe track conditions.”

BNSF defends its safety record and said it already employs a number of the sensors that the NTSB is recommending, but spokeswoman Lena Kent said the Fort