Computer Glitch Halted Amtrak

By DAVID A. MICHAELS, STAFF WRITER

The widespread power failure that shut down passenger rail service between New York and Washington last year occurred because a computer failed to execute a single command, Amtrak announced Friday.

Many state lawmakers rushed to blame the May 25 outage on Amtrak’s aging infrastructure, which includes power converters built in 1915. But the computer was only four years old, and its failure reduced power capacity when Amtrak needed it most during morning rush hour on the nation’s busiest passenger railroad.

“It is a small piece of equipment, similar to a motherboard, that sits on a rack,” said Karina Romero, an Amtrak spokeswoman. “It is nothing huge, but it certainly had an effect on our service.”

The system actually functioned with reduced power for 36 hours, according to an investigation by an outside authority, the North American Electric Reliability Corp.

But the system reached its breaking point at 8:10 a.m., when several power substations shut down. The blackout stranded about 2,000 passengers on NJ Transit trains inside the Hudson River rail tunnels.

NJ Transit officials said Friday that they were satisfied with the findings.

“Amtrak has assured us that they have taken the appropriate steps to prevent a reoccurrence,” NJ Transit said in a statement.

In its own statement, Amtrak acknowledged the May 25 outage was “the first rush-hour incident of this magnitude in U.S. railroad history.”

Amtrak characterized the finding as a vindication of its capital program under former President David Gunn, who focused on improving Amtrak’s infrastructure during his four-year tenure.

“We do have some systems that certainly go back to the 1920s, but we maintain them on a regular basis to make sure they are able to handle that capacity,” Romero said.

Commuter railroads such as NJ Transit also rely on Amtrak’s power- supply system, where frequency converters step down commercially provided power to a level that is used by the railroad.

For several days before the outage, Amtrak had reduced the output of one of the converters, known as Richmond, as workers performed maintenance on it.

The computer that failed was supposed to increase Richmond’s power to normal levels.

When that didn’t happen, the load was shifted to five other substations that provide power to the Northeast Corridor. Three of them sensed an overload and shut down.

“It was a domino effect,” Romero said.

Amtrak officials have since discovered that they do not have to restrict power output during maintenance. They also requested that the computer’s manufacturer add a feature to alert officials if it does not perform a command, she said.

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E-mail: michaels@northjersey.com

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