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Union: Train operator in Chicago crash 'tired'

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Author Topic: Union: Train operator in Chicago crash 'tired'  (Read 250 times)
Psalm 51:17
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« on: March 24, 2014, 10:06:38 pm »

http://news.yahoo.com/union-train-operator-chicago-crash-tired-231309602.html?vp=1
Video: Union: Train operator in Chicago crash 'tired'
3/24/14

CHICAGO (AP) — An operator of a Chicago public-transit train that jumped the tracks and scaled an escalator at one of nation's busiest airports Monday may have dozed off, a union official said.

The woman said she had worked extensive overtime recently and was "extremely tired" at the time of the accident, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308 President Robert Kelly told a news conference.

The derailment happened just before 3 a.m. Monday at the end of the Chicago Transit Authority's Blue Line at O'Hare International Airport. The timing of the accident helped avoid an enormous disaster, as the underground Blue Line station is usually packed with travelers. More than 30 people were hurt, but none had life-threatening injuries.

A CTA supervisor and another worker near the top of the escalator said they saw the train enter at a normal rate of speed, about 15 mph, according to Kelly.

"The next thing they heard the sound (of impact) and the yelling and the screaming
," he said
.

Investigators had not drawn any conclusions about the cause of the accident, National Transportation Safety Board official Tim DePaepe said Monday afternoon, but were looking into whether faulty brakes, signals or human error were factors.

The train is designed so that if an operator becomes incapacitated and his or her hand slips off the controls, it should come to a stop. Kelly speculated that, upon impact, inertia may have thrown the operator against the hand switch, accelerating it enough to send it catapulting onto the escalator.

"I heard a 'Boom!' and when I got off the train, the train was all the way up the escalator," passenger Denise Adams told reporters. "It was a lot of panic."

The train operator, who has worked for the CTA for about a year, suffered a leg injury and has been released from the hospital. She will be interviewed by investigators Tuesday, Kelly said.

Asked by a reporter whether she may have nodded off, Kelly responded, "The indication is there. Yes."

Kelly described the train operator after the accident as distraught, but still able to help passengers.

"She immediately got out of the cab and started asking everybody and checking to make sure that everybody was OK," he said.

Jumping the track likely dissipated the forward movement, thus lessening the accident's severity, said Joseph Schwieterman, a transportation expert at DePaul University.

A more abrupt stop would have slammed people more violently into the train's seats and walls, he said.

"That was a lucky break," he said. "A train hitting a wall at ... high speed could easily have been fatal for many."

The injured were treated at area hospitals and released. Chicago Fire Commissioner Jose Santiago said Monday morning that most were able to walk away from the wreck unaided.

Investigators will review video footage from a camera in the O'Hare station and one that was mounted on the front of the train, DePaepe said. The train will remain at the scene until the NTSB has finished some of its investigation, after which crews will remove the train and fix the damaged escalator.

CTA spokesman Brian Steele said earlier Monday that the train may have been moving too fast as it approached the station and didn't stop at a bumping post — a metal shock absorber at the end of the tracks.

Fatigue or temporary inattention have been raised as possible factors in other commuter train accidents.

In December's train derailment that killed four people in New York, representatives of the operating engineer have said he may have lost focus at the controls in a momentary daze. A preliminary report did not mention that issue, saying excessive speed appeared to be a factor.

That accident highlighted the lack of crash-avoidance systems, or "positive train control," which uses GPS, wireless radio and computers to monitor a train's position. It lets dispatchers halt engines remotely if they speed or blow through stop signals.

It's not clear such a pricey system could have helped prevent Monday's derailment in Chicago.

"There are systems that do stop trains," DePaepe said. "But it is usually about money. The transit agencies do the best they can."

Monday's accident occurred almost six months after an unoccupied Blue Line train rumbled down a track for nearly a mile and struck another train head-on at the other end of the line in September. Dozens were hurt in that incident, which prompted the CTA to make several safety changes.

While the station is closed, the CTA will bus passengers to and from O'Hare to the next station on the line.
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« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2014, 05:28:25 pm »

http://www.twincities.com/news/ci_25414338/miracle-no-deaths-chicago-airport-train-crash?source=nav
Emergency brake failed to stop Chicago train
3/25/14

CHICAGO—An emergency track-side braking system activated but failed to stop a Chicago commuter train from jumping the tracks and barreling to the top of an escalator at O'Hare International Airport, a federal investigator said Tuesday.

The events that led to Monday's accident, which occurred around 3 a.m. and injured more than 30 passengers, might have begun with the train operator dozing off toward the end of her shift, according the union representing transit workers. But Tuesday's announcement that a piece of emergency safety equipment might have failed was the first indication the accident could have been caused by human error and mechanical failure.

National Transportation Safety Board investigator Ted Turpin said a preliminary review showed the train was traveling at the correct speed of 25 mph as it entered the station. Investigators said they have not yet determined whether the operator ever applied the in-cab brake.

Turpin, who is in charge of the investigation, said an automatic emergency braking system located on the tracks was activated but failed to stop the train as it burst onto the platform.

"It activated," Turpin said of the emergency system. "That's all we know factually. Now, whether it did it in time or not, that's an analysis that we have to figure out."

A team from the NTSB was also exploring how rested the train operator was before starting her shift and whether rules governing overtime had been violated, after a union official suggested she might have dozed off.

They planned to interview the train operator Tuesday afternoon.

"We're going to ask probably the operator how they felt ... because we always take into consideration the fatigue factor. It's one of the things we do investigate," Turpin said.

The operator, whom officials have not identified, was off duty for about 17 hours before starting work around 8 p.m. Sunday but had recently put in a lot of overtime, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308 President Robert Kelly said Monday.

"I know she works a lot—as a lot of our members do," he said. "They gotta earn a living. ... She was extremely tired."

Kelly said the operator took standard drug and alcohol tests after the derailment and that she assured him they were not an issue.

Asked whether she may have nodded off, Kelly responded: "The indication is there. Yes."

Federal investigators hoped to turn the scene over to local officials later Tuesday to begin removing the train from the escalator at the underground Chicago Transit Authority station.

The train is designed to stop if operators become incapacitated and their hand slips off the spring-loaded controls. Kelly speculated that, upon impact, inertia might have thrown the operator against the hand switch, accelerating it onto the escalator.

Transit officials refused to discuss what other safety mechanisms are in place around the transit system while the investigation was ongoing.

Federal safety regulators keep a close watch on longer distance, city-to-city passenger rail and freight operations. But federal safety oversight of transit systems within cities has been weaker, and responsibility for any technology to prevent crashes and control speeds has been left to local authorities.

There are efforts to grant a safety oversight role to the Federal Transit Administration, which has primarily been a funding agency, said Sean Jeans-Gail, vice president of the National Association of Railroad Passengers, a Washington-based advocacy group.

In the meantime, local transit agencies like Chicago's make their own choices about how to spend scarce funding, juggling the needs of safely maintaining systems that are a century old in some places with pressure to expand systems to meet demand.

"It's always going to be a tension, but it's a tension that becomes more pronounced when there's not a healthy level of investment in both maintenance and ... capacity expansion," Jeans-Gail said. 

Investigators have also been scrutinizing the train's brakes, track signals and other potential factors while reviewing video footage from more than 40 cameras in the station and on the train, Turpin said.

The station remained closed Tuesday, and CTA buses took passengers to and from O'Hare to the next station on the line. Transport officials have not said when full Blue Line service will resume at O'Hare.

Also Tuesday, attorneys for one of the injured passengers filed a negligence lawsuit in Cook County court against the CTA seeking more than $50,000 in damages. A CTA spokeswoman said the agency doesn't comment on pending litigation.
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