NTSB: Train going too fast at curve


Associated Press

YONKERS, N.Y.

A commuter train that derailed over the weekend, killing four passengers, was hurtling at 82 mph as it entered a 30 mph curve, a federal investigator said Monday. But whether the wreck was the result of human error or mechanical trouble was unclear, he said.

Rail experts said the tragedy might have been prevented if Metro-North Railroad had installed automated crash-avoidance technology that safety authorities have been urging for decades.

The locomotive’s speed was extracted from the train’s two data recorders after the Sunday morning accident, which happened in the Bronx along a bend so sharp that the speed limit drops from 70 mph to 30 mph.

Asked why the train was going so fast, National Transportation Safety Board member Earl Weener said: “That’s the question we need to answer.”

Weener would not disclose what the engineer operating the train told investigators, and he said results of drug and alcohol tests weren’t yet available.

Investigators are also examining the engineer’s cellphone, apparently to determine whether he was distracted.

“When I heard about the speed, I gulped,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Engineers may not use cellphones while on the train, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs Metro-North.

The engineer, William Rockefeller, was injured and “is totally traumatized by everything that has happened,” said Anthony Bottalico, executive director of the rail employees union.

He said Rockefeller, 46, was cooperating fully with investigators.

“He’s a sincere human being with an impeccable record that I know of. He’s diligent and competent,” Bottalico said. Rockefeller has been an engineer for about 11 years and a Metro-North employee for about 20, he said.

Outside Rockefeller’s modest house in Germantown, police told reporters that at the request of the family any of them who trespassed would be arrested. Calls to the home went unanswered.

Weener sketched a scenario that suggested that the train’s throttle was let up and the brakes were fully applied way too late to stave off disaster.

He said the throttle went to idle six seconds before the derailed train came to a complete stop — “very late in the game” for a train going that fast — and the brakes were fully engaged five seconds before the train stopped.

It takes about a quarter-mile to a half-mile to stop a train going 82 mph, Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Kevin Thompson said.

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