Train accidents jumped 15 percent in the past three years, troubling federal rail safety experts who suspect lax maintenance may be a factor.

Derailments caused by faulty tracks - suspected in last Thursday's Amtrak Auto Train derailment in Florida - are up especially sharply. That accident, coupled with the head-on fatal collision of two trains in California on Tuesday, and pending plans to ship by rail most of the nation's nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, Nev., are focusing attention on rail safety.

According to federal figures analyzed by Knight Ridder Newspapers, the number of train derailments in 2001 was the highest since 1985.

Overall, 2001 was the worst safety year in at least a decade in 14 categories, including rear-end collisions, accidents caused by faulty equipment and crashes with cars. The year 2000 was the worst in five categories.

"Is it a concern to this industry? Of course it is," said Charles E. Dettmann, executive vice president for safety of the Association of American Railroads, the industry's Washington lobby.

Dettmann described the recent accident increases as "small," when compared to dramatic declines in rail accidents over the longer haul of the past 25 years.

"Yes, we have inched up (in accidents and derailments) albeit from the lowest point in history from 1996 to 1997," Dettmann said. "Three or four innings doesn't make a game."

Dramatic increases in rail traffic help explain the recent rise in accidents, especially derailments, which are up 32 percent since 1998. But after adjusting for added traffic, derailments are still up sharply. Accidents - a category that includes collisions, explosions, car crashes and other mishaps - are up, too.

To explain the increases, Warren Flatau, a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration in Washington, and others suggested maintenance problems.

"We've seen evidence in some cases that some railroads have done exactly that, that they have deferred maintenance," Flatau told Knight Ridder Newspapers. He concurred with the railroad association's Dettmann that "on balance, year-to-year, there has been improvement" in rail safety since the 1970s.

Bob Halstead, a transportation consultant for Nevada, which is fighting the nuclear waste shipments, also noted economic squeezes.

"The railroads have tried to put the pressure on their unions, they've cut back personnel, they've basically overloaded people," he said.

Unions say the number of union rail maintenance workers is half what it was 20 years ago.

"The reality is that our forces are stretched pretty thin," said Rick Inclima, director of safety for the Brotherhood of Maintenance Way Employees, a national union based in Southfield, Mich.

Dettmann said workers are being replaced by high-tech sensors and equipment that do the job better.

He said most accidents are minor, occurring in side yards and at slow speeds. Statistics show, however, that accidents on main lines and at higher speeds in 2001 were the worst in a decade.

The big safety improvements in the 1980s followed deregulations that made owning railroads more profitable. That freed up the industry to invest more money in new track, training, equipment and technology, Dettmann said.

Now, there are no easy safety improvements left, he said, no "low-hanging fruit."

ACCIDENT STATISTICS

States with most train accidents (not including highway grade crossings), 1995-2001:

Texas: 1805

Illinois: 1694

California: 992

New York: 787

Pennsylvania: 710

Iowa: 604

Ohio: 601

Nebraska: 589

Kansas: 556

Minnesota: 545

Source: Federal Railroad Administration

Twin cities

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2002