Vol. 77/No. 46      December 23, 2013

One aspect of this that has gotten the most attention is the rail bosses’ refusal to spend money on basic safety measures.

“The New York commuter train that derailed,” Reuters reported Dec. 4, “had a safety system designed to keep its engineer alert but it was not installed in the car from which he was controlling the train.”

Like most U.S. commuter rail companies, Metro-North runs its trains in a push-pull configuration, with the engine in the front pulling the train on the trip out of the terminal and in the back pushing the train on the way back. When the engine is in the rear, the engineer drives the train from a specially equipped cab in the front passenger car.

Metro-North installed an alerter system in the engine cab, which sounds an alert if there is no movement of the throttle over a 25-second period and applies the brakes if the engineer doesn’t respond. But there was no alerter on the engineer’s cab on the other end.

Very few Metro-North trains are run with alerter-equipped cabs for engine-pushed trips, Reuters reported.

“My co-workers were shocked when they learned that Metro-North was running its passenger trains without alerters in the cab cars,” Amtrak conductor Mindy Brudno told the Militant. “A number of engineers I talked to, seasoned people with experience in both passenger and freight operation, said from personal experience they knew alerters prevent serious accidents.”

More and more information has come to light about safety incidents and violations this year. On May 17, a Metro-North train derailed as a result of joint failure at the same location where inspectors found problems two days earlier and where a similar break had to be repaired a month earlier. The derailed train was struck by another train on an adjacent track and more than 50 people were hospitalized. Later that same month, a Metro-North passenger train struck and killed a track worker after it was misdirected onto the wrong track. In July, a freight train running on Metro-North’s track derailed at the same curve as the Dec. 1 derailment.

In face of the recent disaster, the Federal Railway Administration issued an emergency order Dec. 6 ordering changes. Two days later, Metro-North put sensors in the track at the sharp curve where the derailment took place. The sensors sound an alarm if a train approaches too fast and apply brakes if it is not slowed down.

The railway administration also ordered Metro-North to make similar changes wherever there are speed reductions of 20 miles per hour or more on their tracks.

Until all the changes are completed, Metro-North must place two qualified train personnel in the cab of every train whenever they approach one of these locations.

Under a federal law passed in 2008 on the heels of a deadly derailment in California, all major freight and passenger rail companies are required to implement a more extensive automated safety system — Positive Train Control — by 2015. Many say they won’t meet the deadline. Metro-North says the earliest it can get the system on track is 2019.

Meanwhile, rail workers and others have organized to support the engineer, who has been suspended from work without pay and could face criminal charges.

“Workers set up a Facebook page called ‘William Rockefeller Support Page,’” Wendy Banen, a retired Metro-North engineer, told the Militant. “More than 1,800 messages have been posted there from workers on many freight and passenger lines, including Metro-North, Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit, from rail workers in Scotland and Canada, as well as from some passengers.”

“People know how exhausting the job is. Some engineers have six trains a day, with only 10 minutes between trips,” Banen said. “The bosses demand ‘on-time’ performance and other pressures that push you and tire you out.”
 
 
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