Nomination for Virginia Railway Express 2013 Rail Disaster Drill Category: Emergency Preparedness- Rail Security Awarding Attachments: 1 Letter from Fairfax Fire and Rescue Introduction Virginia Railway Express (VRE) is a commuter-rail system that connects the communities of Northern Virginia with the central business districts of Alexandria, Crystal City, southeast Washington D.C and Capitol Hill. We carry approximately 20,000 passengers daily and utilize some of the most remotely wooded and security sensitive railroad routes in the region. Proactive attention to safety and security is of the utmost importance. Under mandates from both the System Safety Program Plan (SSPP) and 49 CFR Part 239, VRE holds an annual full-scale emergency simulation (drills) with area first responders. The goal for these drills is to familiarize first responders with our rail equipment and operating environment to better prepare them in the event of a real emergency involving VRE. During the planning stages for our 2013 drill, we asked some critical questions that sparked an innovation that pushed our training practices into a new level. Innovation and Program Enhancement with Intended Results During conversations with regional fire and rescue personnel, VRE staff would repeatedly hear of how important training for VRE emergencies is as the railroad environment and our railcars provides some very unique challenges during emergencies, challenges that are not commonly presented to first responders to train and prepare for. VRE operates over freight mainlines owned and dispatched by CSX and Norfolk Southern. Scheduling extra train movements and otherwise occupying these lines beyond our scheduled windows can upset a great number of long-distance and high value freight and Amtrak trains and requires very high level discussions, commitments and guarantees. Because of this, VRE has traditionally held these drills in our storage yards or on industrial leads on weekend mornings where adjacent parking lots would allow for the staging of emergency vehicles and personnel and no rail traffic would be impacted. First responders would be familiarized with our equipment and its emergency features and would be evaluated on their response with a given scenario. As is the case with many drills, the element of reality was never truly present.
During the initial planning stages for the 2013 drill, VRE s Chief Operating Officer, a rail industry veteran emphasized that the drill should carry the concept of reality in its purpose and a scenario that showed first responders what they would truly be up against should be considered. An analysis of our rail routes and train schedules was done and we found that nearly sixty percent of our trains operated entirely under the cover of darkness depending on the time of year. Most of our routes are wooded and the tracks are built onto steep geographical fills. Drills that allow first responders brightly lit and level access to our equipment would not accurately portray the conditions they would face in a real-world emergency. Additionally, first responders would need to become keenly aware and practiced in how to communicate with the railroad system management, often hundreds of miles away, where they are in the unique language of mileposts in order to properly stop oncoming rail traffic. Our plan became a scenario would test area first responders ability to safely and quickly respond to an upright derailment of a VRE train as it encountered the bridge on a dark fall evening, a realistic scenario in the context of railroad operations. Furthermore, a very realistic inject should include evidence that a passenger savvy enough to operate the emergency door release switches was able to self-evacuate and may have gotten lost in the woods. Fairfax County Fire and Rescue jumped at the chance to take part in such a unique training event and began planning to commit a large amount of resources to the drill event. The Ideal Location Under these noted conditions, we found a location that would be ideally suited for such a challenging and real world drill. The land surrounding the track is owned by Fairfax County Parks Authority and is heavily wooded. It features steep climbs up to the railroad right-of-way and a steel truss bridge spanning the Accotink Creek where a steep drop of over one hundred feet would further challenge the first responders. VRE and Amtrak trains regularly pass this stretch of track over a dozen times during any given weekday. High Level Management Engagement As referenced previously, obtaining permission to occupy freight mainlines outside of VRE s contractually allotted schedules is a challenging enterprise and requires the commitment and support from very senior-level management officials. As VRE staff was already heavily encouraged by VRE s Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer, the insurance and indemnity guarantees were not difficult to arrange. The next challenge would be to present the proposal to Norfolk Southern Corporation s (NS) leadership. VRE staff began at the division level and traveled to Greenville, South Carolina to meet with the superintendent of the Piedmont Division, the division responsible for the trackage in northern Virginia. We
were met with strong support in the division office and were provided with a list of appropriate contacts necessary to gain approval for our plan to stop rail traffic for several hours. We submitted a letter of request to Norfolk Southern s Vice-President of Transportation and Senior Director of Joint Facilities and were encouraged at the support we received. We further discussed the plan at a meeting at NS headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia with their Vice President as well as Director of Safety and Environmental and after careful review of our operations plan and demonstrated commitment to safety, NS approved our request to run a special train and occupy the mainline during our drill. In addition to the approval, Norfolk Southern committed staff representing the operations, safety as well as the railroad police departments to assist us. The Piedmont Division train dispatcher and chief dispatcher would provide simulated communications with crews identical to a real world scenario. The Drill After the northbound passage of the evening Amtrak train, our eight-car passenger train advanced through the area and stopped with a locomotive and three cars out over the bridge. The train crew contacted the NS train dispatcher and reported that it appeared that they had derailed and a number of passengers were injured - commencing the drill. Simultaneously, VRE s operations and communications control center was disabled, requiring employees to leave the headquarters building and travel to VRE s organizational disaster recovery site to continue to manage the situation using redundant work sites. Fairfax County s police and fire dispatcher was contacted and the first responders began to arrive. Struggling to find a convenient route through the woods, the first responders quickly scoured the area to find the best access up to the track level and repositioned equipment. Verifying that train movements were stopped, the fire and rescue department were able to deploy flagmen one mile in each direction to watch for rail activity per their safety manual one element they have never been able to practice before. While triaging passengers on board, they discovered simulated blood trails aboard a railcar and an open vestibule door showing blood drops heading into the woods. The indication was that a passenger selfevacuated and made an attempt to find his own way home. Fairfax County Police were summoned and their helicopter with advanced forward looking infrared cameras was deployed to scour the woods and ravines surrounding the tracks for a passenger. Fire and rescue
units followed instructions provided from the air and worked their way through the trees, eventually finding the injured passenger some 150 yards from the train. After packaging the injured passenger for movement, they carried him up through the wooded hillside to the waiting ambulance, which concluded the drill. Benefits Achieved It is without question that the indirect benefits received from this realistic training exercise were many. VRE s annual operations schedule is occasionally punctuated by the need to summon first responders as are those of virtually all other commuter rail systems. Our experience has been (and likely shared by other commuter rail agencies) that first responders who may be unsure of the steps necessary to ensure their safety on or about the railroad and the equipment only stand to put themselves and those they seek to assist in further danger. Lastly, as more public investment is made to passenger rail systems, equipment and infrastructure becomes more consistently reliable. Therefore, significant service disruptions become less frequent, resulting in a collective inexperience in handling some of the minutiae of major problems. This innovative and purpose driven exercise has resulted in some of the following benefits: Drill sent a clear message to regional first response agencies of our commitment to their professional development resulting in an increase in requests for training opportunities. Invitation to participate regularly on regional council of fire chiefs organized under the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments resulting in better communications during VRE service disruptions Solidified our reputation among our host railroad organizations that we can conduct large scale training exercises safely and with sensitivity to the needs of all stakeholders in mind. Increased analysis of internal emergency management protocols.
Pre-event railroad safety and equipment emergency operation training held in Fairfax Fire and Rescue classrooms. Field training on passenger equipment emergency features and railroad environment. Equipment arrives to bridge location and makes emergency call Fire and Rescue squads begin to assess the scene and remove healthy passengers More critically injured passengers are packaged for removal. First responders were challenged with the confined areas on the passenger cars as well as negotiating long walks on active railroad right-of-ways.