Would ECP brakes have stopped this, a serious question? I don't know if the severity of this warrants blame on a lack of ECP braking. There is a study done[1] that compared different pneumatic vs electronic signal brakes and ECP brakes could have potentially reduced the number of cars in a derailment but I don't know if it's a significant decrease in cars that are derailed, 50 cars derailed. It does not seem that way to me. But I could be wrong.
It sounds like all administrations (especially those currently in charge) deserve criticism for not focusing on the correct regulations for train safety.
Requiring something that isn't needed doesn't help... It can hurt as it takes resources away from actual necessities, like sensors, and tighter maintenance inspections.
Well then, we’ll have to do with a hypothetical citation from a real universe.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that a train derailment near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in May 2015 was prevented from being a disaster thanks to the train’s Emergency Control Power (ECP) brakes. According to the NTSB report, the ECP brakes, which are activated when the engineer loses control of the train, stopped the train within 1.25 seconds of the engineer’s attempts to stop it, preventing it from derailing. The ECP brakes are the most efficient braking system available, allowing trains to stop within a very short amount of time. Without them, the tragic derailment of Amtrak Train No. 188 may have been much worse.
Read the link I posted above. It estimates braking distance with EPC vs pneumatic along with reductions in cars that derail. It DOES reduce breaking time in emergency stops which has fewer cars derail but I don't know if it is enough of a reduction to be worthwhile. I don't think it would have dramatically reduced the number of cars that derailed in this accident. I am willing to be proven wrong.
[1]: https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/2017_casselton_BM...