This is the result!
This would be the second time in recent memory that an operator has “nodded off” while at the throttle (or controller)
The Metro North wreck at Spuyten Duyval back in December, 2013 was under similar circumstances…\
I hope the LION stays bright-eyed and bushy tailed (and NO catnip, either!) while he is in command of all those subway trains!
Ed
Lucky no one was on the escalator!
At least my HO trains don’t do such damage when the operator is cat napping.
Good luck,
Richard
This accident has been in national news.
I thought trains had “dead man controls” to stop them if motorman fell asleep. Anyboy know?
There were three safety brake systems and, for some reason, none of them stopped the train. Two of the systems are the dead man’s switch and ATC. The NTSB is investigating.
Rich
Dead man switch or not, the train should be showing a deceleration profile to stop before the buffers, and if not it shoud apply emergency brake. Europeans have been doing this for decades. Face it, today’s casual new hires that push and pull levers for $40K salary are probably different than the yesteryears engineer which took 10 years to graduate to a passenger express train and could communicate with the helper engine in the back only using the brake pipe pressure. Lets automate the deal so the operator is full proof.
IIRC dead man switch leaves a 25 second window in which if the operator slept at the right moment it won’t do anything for 25 seconds, enough time to bust thru the buffers at 20 mph.
NP.
Actually, the little-known “4th” safety brake system is what stopped the train. It went up the down escalator. Whoda thunk. Thankfully, few people were there at that hour.
Tom
Of course, early on, it is difficult to speculate but I did read part of one report where it was stated that this train ran three “trip” mechanisms…
Turpin said automatic braking systems did activate as the train pulled into the station, and the brakes were trying to stop the train, but investigators don’t know yet why the train was unable to stop before plowing through a bumping post and derailing, then slamming into an escalator.
Dead man’s pedal has largely been replaced by an “alerter” whereby the operator has to respond to an audio alert within a certain time. Some people who have studied this say an operator can acknowledge the alerter and still doze off, kind of like I do when I hit the snooze alarm. I do not know if CTA cars have such devices.
I mainly posted this because of the interesting security video! (and to give LION a paws-up while on the mane lion) Ed
I was once told by a NTSB accident investigator that most dead-man switch ‘failures’ were the result of somebody wedging the switch in the ‘acnowledge’ position. Wooden wedges, usually, but in one case a badly-bent nickel was found where it shouldn’t have been…
Japanese commuter EMU had (and probably still have) a loud horn that sounded in advance of EVERY signal, no matter the indication. To silence it, the d’raiba had to reach almost full arm length across his console and push a vertical, guarded button. I never heard of a, “Busted through the bumper,” accident while I was living there.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with EMU that terminate on stub tracks)
This excerpt is from one of our local news outlets.
There are at least two primary systems which are on the radar of investigators. First and foremost is what is known as the “dead man’s switch.” The train is driven by the motorman with his or her hand on a tiller known as a “Cineston controller.” If that handle is released for any reason (for example, if the motorman falls asleep or has a heart attack), the throttle is cut, the brakes are applied, and the train comes to an immediate stop.
That didn’t happen here.
A second system is called Automatic Train Control (ATC). That system works in tandem with speed signals along the route. If the motorman ignores a speed warning or other caution for any reason, ATC will first give an alarm, and if it’s ignored will take over and stop the train.
That also did not happen.
Rich
[:D]
Suspect it made a pretty good racket in the hotel above the station. Always felt a little uneasy going into that particular stop knowing that if the car didn’t stop things would not end well.
Didn’t play out too well for Amroad, either!
Ed
Rich,
The local paper had a story saying that the train did trip a final emergency stop device on entering the station. Not sure how that was activated, worked some it implied, but obviously not enough. Perhaps entered going too fast for it to completely be effective?
Were there any passengers on-board? I was wondering if so and what they were saying.
Everyone involved was very lucky, including any wandering around the airport at that hour.
I just got that![(-D]
There was a subway accident a few years ago in Toronto where a passenger train rear ended a maintenance train. IIRC the contributing factors, besides the operater dozing off, were that the trip switches that were supposed to have stopped the train when it passed the red signals were so worn out that they simply didn’t work. Apparently the trip switches were on the inside of a curve and the speed of the train obviously forced it to the outside of the curve, and the track was worn out too. Fatal combination. At least two passengers died unfortunately.
There are a bunch of proven technologies that can prevent this sort of thing. Why are the designers asleep at the switch too?
Dave
Mike, the brakes on the rails were the third safety device. They activated but failed to stop the train which was traveling 25 MPH, a speed at which those rail brakes were designed to work.
There were 30 injured people, all of whom were passengers on the train.
Rich
I had childhood friend who became a Motorman on the NYC Subway. He was working the midnight shift on the AA local from 168th St. to Hudson Terminal in the late '70’s. As he was bringing his train into Hudson Terminal he fell asleep, The train was running at the proper speed and passed a couple of timed signals, then ran into the bumper post. There was very little damage and besides him and the Conductor there were only two passengers on the train, one was a transit cop who then retired on disability and the other was sleeping and wasn’t hurt. He was demoted to conductor and was given one of the worst jobs, flagging on a garbage train from the end of a flat car being pushed by the work train in the freezing cold weather.
CNN this morning said that the train tripped an emegency system “41 feet from the bumper.” Now, that’s not even a car length, and from the height that the train climbed the escalator, you can tell it was moving pretty fast. It sounds like that final safety system was there to stop a train moving just a bit too fast from hitting the bumper, not to stop a full-speed runaway.
Amroad? Didn’t work out very well for the PRR in the 50’s at Washington Union Station either. Concourse not exactly designed to support the weight of a train…
http://www.thejoekorner.com/rrfolklore/fedexp.shtm
In this case, no amount of anything would have stopped this train, only the first couple of cars were doing any braking.
–Randy
Does anyone remember the gimmick from the Taking of Pelham 123? Nothing is fool proof.