BY BILL CUMMINGS, MARTIN B. CASSIDY AND FAUSTO GIOVANNY PINTO
Hearst Connecticut Media
The flood of Metro-North accidents over the last year ”“ including the Bridgeport derailment that injured 65 people ”“ resulted from a systemwide failure to follow recommendations, the nation’s top safety investigator said Tuesday.
“All the accidents were preventable,” said Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, during a press conference at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan.
And although each of them had a different cause, the underlying cause of them was “safety management problems,” the NTSB’s final report on the five major Metro-North accidents states. Released yesterday, the NTSB report contains the final investigations into the accidents that occurred in the space of less than a year, killing four people and injuring well more than 100Â passengers.
The federal board placed much of the blame on Metro-North, but the reports also fault the Federal Railroad Administration, which oversees the nation’s railways, for failing to require railroads to follow NTSB safety recommendations.
“Time and again in this investigation we saw regulatory and oversight lapses the NTSB had warned about before,” Hart said. “Preventive measures should be completed before an accident occurs, not after.”
The accidents between May 2013 and March 2014 prompted the FRA to start its own investigation, on top of the NTSB’s. Operation Deep Dive, as the railway administration named its report, heaped criticism on Metro-North and painted a sweeping picture of a railroad more focused on on-time performance than safety.
Metro-North President Joseph Giulietti acknowledged the NTSB’s criticism and said it is a “new day” at the railroad.
“We truly take to heart all the issues that have been stated and despite what you might hear about budgets, never once has the chairman or the board questioned the money that is necessary for safe operations,” he said.
Giulietti has been in his position since February, having been hired away from the South Florida railway system after his predecessor, Howard Permut, stepped down following the Bronx derailment.
“It’s been a continuous process of trying to get this railroad back up where it belongs and continue the safety improvements,” Giulietti said.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., underscored the NTSB’s finding that the FRA shares blame for safety lapses at Metro-North, speaking with other Connecticut elected officials at a press conference in Bridgeport.
“As much as the (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) is to blame, the blame also belongs with federal oversight in D.C., which has simply failed to do its job,” Blumenthal said.
The FRA must be held accountable for the NTSB recommendations it failed to implement and the law it failed to apply or enforce, he said. A member of the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Blumenthal has introduced legislation along with Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., to beef up oversight by the FRA.
“Inspections were missed and warning signs were disregarded again and again and again,” Blumenthal said.
Much of the information in the report about the causes of the five accidents has come out sporadically over the last year and a half.
The NTSB blamed much of Metro-North’s track inspection failures on an FRA-approved exemption relieving high-density commuter railroads such as Metro-North from inspecting tracks on foot every two weeks.
Instead, Metro-North uses visual inspections during which workers often cannot see both sides of the rails, the reports explained. The NTSB recommended years ago the FRA not exempt high-density commuter railroads from the requirement.
The reports concluded that the May 2013 death of Robert Luden, a Metro-North foreman struck and killed by a train while working on closed tracks in West Haven, could have been prevented if the railway administration had required redundant signal protection to halt trains entering work zones as recommended by the transportation safety board.
A spokesman for the FRA, Kevin Thompson said the agency is not ignoring the safety board’s recommendations.
“We routinely address NTSB recommendations, but this is a pipeline ”“ as old ones are resolved, new ones are produced,” Thompson said.
“Some recommendations can be easily addressed, while others require lengthier responses, such as development of rule makings or the development of new technologies,” Thompson said.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said the reports “confirm concerns I raised with Metro-North leadership regarding their business practices well over a year and half ago.
“Since then, much has been accomplished, but it will take an ongoing commitment to ensuring a safety culture in the organization as well as investing in the essential safety, maintenance and training resources at Metro-North,” Malloy said.
Hearst Connecticut Media includes four daily newspapers: Connecticut Post, Greenwich Time, The Advocate (Stamford) and The News Times (Danbury). See stamfordadvocate.com for more from this reporter.
