NEW YORK — Missing bolts on a subway car and a track misalignment led to the derailment of a New York City Transit subway train at Coney Island on Jan. 10, the New York Daily News reports in a paywalled article.
Four bolts were missing from the car’s radius arm, part of the suspension system, when it derailed on an F line train on elevated track near the West 8th Street-New York Aquarium station [see “New York subway system hit by second derailment in a week,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 10, 2024]. At the same time, New York City Transit President Richard Davey said, there was a “track con-conformity” in the area.
No one was injured in the incident. Some 137 passengers were evacuated by two rescue trains from the elevated track structure
Does this incident sound so familiar ? It seems like the debacle and incident With Alaska Airlines and the Boeing 737-9 Max plane now popped up in the NYC subway system. Both of these incidents rested on a simple thing such as a bolt or a few of them. As the old saying goes ” For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the battle was lost. Who knows what other planes, cars, trucks trains are operating around the world with the absence of such a small, insignicant item yet extremely important component that keeps the vehicle together and prevents things from either falling apart or imploding. The smallest parts are usually if not the most important part of any construction or makeup of anything built or constructed
Joseph C. Markfelder
I guess no one from the shop could get to Home Depot to buy four bolts for the radius arm. Big oops there.