Deadly Train Crash Puts the Spotlight on Metro-North's Recent Safety Record -- Again

By Lanning Taliaferro and Rich Scinto (Patch Staff)

In the past two years Metro-North has seen eroded commuter confidence in the face of derailments and deaths, excessive and relentless delays, constant electrical problems, a sharply-criticized communication structure and a culture that detractors said valued performance over safety.

Over the past 20 months, 14 people have been killed while riding the Metro-North rails and more than 100 people have been injured in Connecticut and New York.

In response, railroad officials have instituted sweeping reforms. Still, this week saw the deadliest accident in the railroad’s history.

But National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Suwalt said it’s too early to tell if the collision between a packed commuter express and a Mercedes SUV at a Mount Pleasant grade crossing stems from the systemic problems previously noted by the NTSB and others.

“I believe the issues at the time the report was issued were valid, but there may be no relationship between those issues and this accident,” he said Wednesday. “I would be very cautious in trying to draw a nexus between what happened before and what happened now.”

Here’s the “before”

Seven accidents since May 2013 have killed 14 people and injured more than 100 on the busy commuter system, which has 124 stations in New York and Connecticut on the Pascack, Hudson, Harlem and New Haven lines.

• May 17, 2013--Two trains collide on the New Haven Line near the Fairfield/Bridgeport town line in Connecticut.
• May 28, 2013--Track foreman killed on the New Haven line.
• July 18, 2013--a train derails on the Hudson Line.
• Dec. 2, 2013--a sleepy engineer on the Hudson Line took a 30-mph curve at 80 mph, derailing in the Bronx and killing four.
• March 10, 2014--An MTA electrician was killed by a northbound train in Manhattan.
• Dec. 17, 2014--A Milford CT woman died after stepping between two Metro North cars at Grand Central
• Feb. 3, 2015--Six die, 15 injured when an evening express train on the Harlem Line collides with an SUV on the tracks in Mount Pleasant, NY.

In addition, a major service disruption occurred in September 2013, when a power failure led to 12 days of chaos and cost the Connecticut economy an estimated $62 million.

In that incident, Metro-North and Con Edison had taken down one power feeder line as it prepared to upgrade, according to Capitol New York. The second feeder line, a backup, failed. The New York Public Service Commission found that there was no agreed upon contingency plan between Metro-North and Con Edison if power to the remaining line failed.

Presidents of Metro-North and Con Edison took turns apologizing and ducking blame at a congressional field hearing, according to the Connecticut Mirror. Connecticut Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy criticized finger-pointing and inadequate preparation.

In 2014, scathing reports came from the NTSB and a Blue Ribbon Panel created to investigate what was going on. A systemic obsession with performance and neglect of safety was the shocking conclusion both drew.

For example, in the Bridgeport incident, two trains collided following a derailment due to an undetected broken pair of compromise joint bars, according to the National Transportation Safety Board report. There were 12 reported serious injuries and 53 minor injuries.

The NTSB concluded that the lack of a comprehensive track maintenance program and decision to defer maintenance contributed to that accident.

As for the incident when Robert Luden was struck and killed by a passenger train while working as a track foreman on railroad tracks in West Haven: The NTSB concluded that a, “...student rail traffic controller’s removal (while working without direct supervision) of signal blocking protection for the track segment occupied by the track foreman…” along with lack of redundancy was the probable cause of that accident.

Luden’s estate filed a $30 million lawsuit against Metro-North a year ago.

The “Operation Deep Dive” study of the commuter railroad by the Federal Railroad Administration said an overemphasis on preventing delays along the commuter railroad’s money-making main line led Metro-North officials to routinely put on-time performance well ahead of safety practices and concerns.

Longtime commuter advocate Jim Cameron, founder of the Commuter Action Group, called the report ”a scathing indictment of years of neglect and mismanagement at the railroad.”

In response, Metro North began an urgent improvement program, first with its 100-Day Action Plan and then with a sweeping series of safety reforms. The reforms touched virtually every aspect of Metro-North’s operations, its officials said. Top among them: Slowing trains down, installing cameras and alert systems that monitor the engineers and automated track inspections to supplement ongoing personal inspections.

Also, officials said, the railroad would reorganize the Safety Department; centralize oversight of all training functions at Metro-North in the Training & Development Department, to reduce fragmentation; and establish a work plan to address each directed actions identified in the FRA review. They said they would also negotiate with the unions to become part of the FRA’s anonymous employee safety tip line.

Still problems have troubled the system

Just last week, Blumenthal said he would raise detailed questions about a pair of derailments that occurred Jan. 28. One happened near Grand Central and the other near a White Plains rail yard, according to ABC 7.

Blumenthal said that the derailments were, “Much more than a minor inconvenience, this disturbing multiple car derailment delays and disrupts travel for countless riders. The derailment, fairly or not, recalls past incidents – renewing concerns about safety and reliability. I will be raising detailed questions about the derailment with Metro-North. I appreciate that the FRA has begun an investigation and has alerted me to the incident.”

This week’s crash is different, said Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, because it appears to have been caused by a driver whose Mercedes SUV was on the track when the packed commuter train came through. Why she was in the grade crossing may come out in the NTSB investigation. Certainly the probe will discover whether the train mechanisms, the crossing gates and the signals worked as they were supposed to.

The thing is, Astorino said, “when you get on the train to go to work or go home you expect to arrive safely.”

PHOTO/NTSB

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• Two Months After Scathing Safety Report, Metro North Announces Reforms