By Elliot Njus

The Oregonian

Amtrak was under pressure to improve its safety culture even before Monday’s deadly derailment along a new route in Washington state.

Though the crash inquiry is in its early stages, the lead investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board has already confirmed that the train was traveling 80 mph in a 30 mph zone when it derailed at 7:34 a.m.

The board warned as recently as November that safety lapses throughout Amtrak have contributed to crashes, with its chairman saying the railway’s safety culture is “failing.”

That was the board’s finding following its review of the April 3, 2016, crash near Chester, Pennsylvania. A Georgia bound-train going nearly 100 mph struck a backhoe on tracks that were undergoing maintenance, killing two workers and injuring 39 people aboard the train.

Investigators determined the train engineer was not at fault. But the safety board found the work crew didn’t have equipment that could have averted the crash, and there was poor communication between the workers, supervisors and dispatchers. The board issued a broad rebuke in November saying that Amtrak operates a “deficient system safety program” and had failed to prioritize safety.

It also found the railway had a dysfunctional relationship with its union, which led to the inconsistent execution of safety procedures.

“Amtrak’s safety culture is failing, and is primed to fail again, until and unless Amtrak changes the way it practices safety management,” safety board Chairman Robert L. Sumwalt said in a statement at the time. “Investigators found a labor-management relationship so adversarial that safety programs became contentious at the bargaining table, with the unions ultimately refusing to participate.”

Washington, D.C.-based Amtrak ferries 86,000 riders a day throughout the continental United States and Canada. It was established in 1971 as a for-profit business, but it receives government funding. It operates Amtrak Cascades as a contractor for Washington state.

Previous derailments have been attributed to excessive speed and a lack of automated safety measures.

In 2015, a train derailed in Philadelphia after entering a sharp curve at 106 mph. Speeds there are limited to 50 mph. The safety board said the crash occurred largely because an engineer lost track of his surroundings and accelerated when he should have been braking.

It also found the crash could have been avoided if positive train control — technology that automatically slows or stops trains — had been activated. The technology, which is supposed to go into widespread use in 2018, had similarly not been in use during Monday’s crash.

Amtrak also saw a derailment on its Cascades line earlier this year. Speed was a factor in that crash, too.

The train had been approaching a drawbridge when it passed a signal in excess of the 40 mph speed limit, officials said. That triggered a derail switch, a safety device intended to keep the train from reaching the bridge when it’s open. Three of the train’s 267 passengers sustained minor injuries, and the engineer was suspended without pay.