BART officials acknowledge that although they had slowed trains in the past to reduce the threat of potential heat-related derailments, the agency didn’t have a heat-related speed restriction policy in place when its train partially derailed in Concord.
“This is something that every rail operator should have a set policy that goes into place under these conditions -- they know what the danger condition is we dodged a bullet,” said Paul Chinowsky, a University of Colorado at Boulder professor - and expert on the effects of heat and climate change on rails systems about what happened in Concord. “To have so few injuries is almost unheard of, so, it was a truly, truly fortunate that there weren't more people injured and killed in the event.
Back in 2017 BART even issued a formal statement during a labor day heat wave - saying, in part , that it was"possible - though unlikely - that there could be some rail movement" during elevated temperatures and"train speeds are being reduced in targeted parts of the system as a precautionary measure to give train operators more time to react to any observed abnormal rail conditions.” BART said the “unusual” action would add 10 to 20 minutes more onto commutes.
“That is surprising,” Chinowsky said of the apparent lack of policy. He also noted that while there is no federal standard, cutting train speeds is common practice both in the U.S. and worldwide during heat surges, because it’s the only sure way to limit the damage that higher speed trains can inflict on vulnerable, overheated steel trackways. The higher the speed, he said, the more pressure is exerted around curves where trackways are particularly susceptible to permanent deformation from heat.
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