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2014 STOCKTON


PIZZA PARTY AND


SLIDE SHOW PRESENTED BY


AND THE Rail Safety Concerns Escalate


Coming out to Stockton for Winterail 2014? Then join us on Friday, March 7 at the Scottish Rite Masonic Center for our 2014 Pizza Party and Slide Show! Your $10 ticket gets you pizza, soda pop, and admission to our Friday evening shows. We will be showing traditional slides as well as digital presentations.


LOCATION


SCOTTISH RITE CENTER 33 W.ALPINE AVE. STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA


SCHEDULE


5:00 P.M. PIZZA IS SERVED


6:00-10:00 P.M. SLIDE SHOWS


TICKETS


$10 PER PERSON PAY AT THE DOOR


CONTACT


STEVE BARRY EDITOR@RAILFAN.COM


Winterail is not affiliated with this event. Proceeds from this event will benefit NRHS programs. See you in Stockton!


16 JANUARY 2014 • RAILFAN.COM


AS THIS COLUMN WAS GOING TO PRESS, the National Transportation Safety Board was investigating the New York City derailment of a Metro North commuter train near Spuyten Duyvil in the Bronx. The early Sun- day morning run (December 1) was bound for Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. Four were killed, at least 63 were injured, at least 11 of them seriously. The train’s engineer was believed to have nodded off and applied the brakes as he en- tered the sharp curve (the train was going 82 m.p.h. in a 30 m.p.h. zone). No talking “out of school”: The NTSB has already yanked the train employees union off the official investigation because the general chairman of the Association of Commuter Rail Employees used a press con- ference to give ACRE’s side of the story. Union Chairman Anthony Bottalico admit- ted that the train engineer, William Rocke- feller, had nodded off just before the derail- ment — “the equivalent of what we all have when we drive a car [highway hypnosis]. He caught himself, but it was too late.” He added, “How long that lasts, I can’t answer that. Only Billy can.”


NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman was


having none of that spin, supportive or oth- erwise. “While we value the expertise that groups like ACRE can provide during the course of the investigation,” she said, “it is counterproductive when an organization breaches the party agreement,” by going public before the investigation is completed. What followed (clearing the wreckage) disrupted two days commute for New York- ers and riders from Connecticut. But that wasn’t quite the end of the problem; five days later (December 5), an Amtrak train was stopped in the Bronx and sent back to Yonkers because of a signal malfunction on the same track where the Metro North de- railment had occurred on December 1. A pattern?: Already there was concern over two previous accidents on Metro-North property: In May, a northbound train de- railed in Bridgeport, Conn., during the evening rush hour and was later struck by a train operating in the opposite direction. There were 73 injuries, two critical. No fatal- ities, however. At the time, this column, among others, quoted safety officials as crediting the standards of heavy “crashwor- thy” equipment in the U.S. — as opposed to lighter requirements elsewhere — with avoiding deaths in that case. However, unrelated to that particular is-


sue, eleven days later, a track foreman, Robert Luden, was struck by a train in West Haven, Conn. He had been requesting that the track he was working on be shut down. Then in July, a northbound garbage-haul-


ing freight train derailed just east of the site of the December 1 accident. And in Septem- ber, Metro North’s new Haven line was down for 12 days after a Con Ed feeder cable went kaput. To top it off: “Accidents will happen,” of


course. But the rapid fire misfortunes of this particular railroad raises questions. With


the backing of the states of New York and Connecticut, Metro North is responsible for the relatively short, but extremely busy, stretch of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor be- tween New Rochelle, N.Y., and New Haven, Conn., the only part of the NEC not actually owned by Amtrak itself. With about 200 Am- trak and Metro-North trains hosted on these tracks on any weekday, that is an undertak- ing that requires the highest degree of effi- ciency and precision. As for the engineer: As I write, no one would want to be in Bill Rockefeller’s shoes. He has been suspended without pay. A crim- inal investigation had been launched by the Bronx DA’s office and NYPD. Manslaughter charges and/or reckless endangerment charges could be in the offing. In addition, at least one injured passenger (so far) is filling out forms to sue the Metropolitan Trans- portation Authority (MTA) which oversees Metro North. Of course, as we have recently reported, other serious rail accidents have occurred in recent months. Even before . . . : Less than a month be- fore the December 1 derailment, the NTSB’s top engineer stated that maintenance on the Metro North Railroad is years behind sched- ule. Testifying before an NTSB hearing here in Washington, Chief Engineer Robert Pu- ciloski said the line is behind the work in several areas. For example, a five-year schedule of cyclical maintenance had not been conducted in the Bridgeport area (site of the May derailment) since 2005. Puciloski said he had no explanation as to the lagging schedule, but added that Metro- North is trying to complete the job. FRA weighs in: Taking stock of all this,


the Federal Railroad Administration, the in- dustry’s top federal regulator, has rebuked Metro-North. A letter written by Adminis- trator Joseph Szabo has called for mandato- ry safety retraining of Metro-North workers and the creation of a confidential reporting system that encourages employees to report safety concerns.


Back to North of the Border As might be expected, the July 6 crash of an oil train that killed 47 and nearly wiped out the town of Lac-Mégantic in Québec, Cana- da continues to inflict damage in many ways. 1) There has been a class action lawsuit wherein it is alleged that two oil produc- ers — Marathon Oil Corporation and Slaw- son Exploration Co. Inc., two of the compa- nies that produced the highly explosive shale liquids that were carried on the train that day —failed to provide adequate warn- ings about the composition of the shale liq- uids and the true dangers associated with the shipping of it by rail. Several towns in Canada have engaged in a running feud with the railroads, mostly over safety con- cerns such as this. Rothesay Deputy Mayor Nancy Grant has opined that, “municipali- ties should have input on what goes through their communities.” And then . . . : In early November, a 90-


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