The incidents took place Nov. 9 on Metra’s Rock Island line at the 191st Street crossing. A near hit involving one of the trains, No. 506, was widely viewed when a Mokena police officer posted his squad car’s dashcam video of the incident on Facebook in December. The officer swerved his car at the last moment, averting a collision.
But minutes earlier that morning, two other inbound commuter trains had passed through the same crossing when the gates and signals failed. A video taken from the engineer’s cab showed several vehicles crossing the tracks dangerously close to being struck by one of the trains.
The gates worked properly when other trains passed through the crossing that morning, according to Metra.
Metra CEO/Executive Director Jim Derwinski gave a lengthy and detailed presentation and chronology of events to Metra’s board of directors. Derwinski called the events “disheartening,” while repeating that safety is Metra’s top priority.
The problem was traced to an “intermittent short” in the electrical circuit that controlled the track signal and gates, Derwinski says. An inspection showed that insulation in the switch was “breaking down” causing it to short out.
Inspections are conducted every 30 days but an intermittent failure “would have been impossible to detect,” Derwinski says.
Derwinski says the significance of the events of Nov. 9 were not apparent to Metra’s leadership until later.
“Once we dlved into this, we discovered there was a little bit more to be told of the story — as a matter of fact a lot more to be told of the story — than just the near miss that was captured on the police (dash)cam,” Derwinski says.
The dashcam video, posted just before Christmas, has been viewed more than a million times.
Metra officials say they’re reviewing the actions of employees in regards to that day’s events and “will work within its collective bargaining agreements on any corrective or disciplinary steps.”
A Metra spokesman said the agency will not comment further on the employees or actions taken against them.
Metra said it has “since reinforced with all relevant personnel the reporting procedures following a gate activation failure.”
Metra said it reported the gate activation failure with Train 506 to the Federal Railroad
Administration on Nov. 13 and has made the FRA aware of the additional information. The agency said it is cooperating fully with an FRA investigation of the day’s events.
A Metra signal maintainer who had been assigned earlier that morning to investigate a malfunctioning signal along that stretch of tracks was at the crossing at the time of the third incident. Derwinski explained that the trains encountered a signal along the track requiring the engineer to stop at a location where trains don’t usually get a stop signal, about 1.8 miles from the 191st Street crossing.
Derwinski related the incident involving train No. 412 which moved through the crossing prior to No. 506. Although a wayside signal showed red, a cab car signal gave the engineer permission to accelerate and proceed through the crossing. The gates were supposed to activate a minimum of 20 seconds before the train gets to the crossing, but that did not happen, Derwinski says.
Cab car video shows several cars crossing as the train approaches, and the engineer sounding the train’s horn.
The engineer of train No. 412 did not report to a dispatcher that the gates failed to activate, Derwinski says. That incident occurred at 4:25 a.m., he said.
As the next train, No. 414, passed through the crossing, the gates operated properly, Derwinski says. When the next train, No. 416 approached, the gates were down, but as it approached, the gates started to go up. No vehicles entered the crossing.
Crossing protection not working or working consistently = Stop, and Flag protection for _all_ movements until the problem is tested successfully as resolved. Period. Those are the Rules.
Damn. Another lawyer posting comments
Mister Cook:
I think that I know just a little bit more about track circuits than you give me credit for. And if you read what has been released the problem did not stem from an insulated joint failure but from a manually operated turnout indicator which shorted across. See analysis on how to do a fail-safe four-wire circuit for such applications in the article on what was seen from the engineer’s perspective.
The above remarks are general in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Find your own damn lawyer.
I woukd think the Engineer who did not report the failure will get a well deserved vacation
Ana Harding, you do not know anything about railroad track circuits and should not post your guesswork. There is a major design flaw in that the insulated joint short failed to effect stop signals for a fail/safe design.
But the bigger major problem is with the engineer who did not put his train in emergency when the crossing gates were not down, and cars flashed across in front of the train. And even more amazing the video is from the 3rd train who’s engineer failed to put the train in emergency. I’m sure glad to hear there will be investigations and training courses to teach all engineers to DUMP IT on close calls like that. What is different in how this switch is wired into the main line? How many other switches are wired up like this on this railroad, and what about the rest of the nation? One failed insulated joint should never permit this to happen.
This case with no accident may not have the triggers to require a FRA formal investigation but the scope of what is being discovered need this to become a major FRA Safety Project. as soon as the government shut down is settled. Operation Lifesaver should incorporate the finding here as well.
Mister Wayman:
If you look at the incident from the train perspective you will notice a turnout to the right just before the crossing. I assume this is the manual turnout referred to in the reportage. Supposedly a(n) (electrical) switch associated with this turnout shorted across and this is what held off the crossing protection. I can see this happening.
On the other hand this is a defective design in that such a thing was possible and did happen. Not only the railroad, but the equipment vendor could have been held liable had this resulted in an accident. This would have been the sort of tort that a personal injury attorney dreams of.
There is a safer way of doing things. There is an equipment cabinet near this crossing, and I assume the turnout is there to service a business – which would require some back-and-forth switching and they would not want the crossing protection activated while this is going on. How about installing a manual switch in this equipment cabinet, with a timer to ensure it is not forgotten about? Old fashioned perhaps, but sometimes, to quote Gus Fring, the old ways are best.
Another question. Why was this failure not reported by the first train to encounter it? Where was the engineer? Not observing it and/or not reporting it could have been construed as negligence.
A number of people are very lucky. Nobody got hurt.
The above remarks are general in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Find your own damn lawyer.
If this was as recently reported on Chicago ABC chan 7 TV a bad insulated joint insulation failure. It should have caused an occupied block condition which should have supplied a stop signal for the train. If it was something in the audio tone overlay circuitry, that may not affect the track signals. I would like to know what actually was found. My training was the circuit design was to be “FAIL-SAFE”. This failure bothers me.
Track circuits keep a relay energized to represent an unoccupied track section. A rail vehicle “shorts” the rails to cause the track relay to drop. Relays have to be energized to provide a signal indication more favorable than a stop. What failure was found that provided a clear track signal yet did not initiate a crossing protection baffles me