BOSTON — The operator of a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority light rail train that rear-ended another train in July, injuring more than 20 people, has been arraigned on two charges of gross negligence in connection with the accident.
WCVB-TV reports Owen Turner, 50, faces charges of gross negligence of a person in control of a train and gross negligence of a person having care of a common carrier.
Turner was arraigned Wednesday and released on his personal recognizance. According to prosecutors, Turner gave answers that were inconsistent and contradicted surveillance video in a series of interviews by transit police.
Turner had been placed on leave after the July 30 incident in which 25 people were injured when the westbound train on the Green Line’s B Branch struck a slower-moving train ahead of it [see “MBTA light rail collision injures 25,” Trains News Wire, Aug. 2, 2021]. A preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board said the train was traveling at 31 mph when it struck the train moving at 10 mph. An MBTA spokesman said in a statement that the agency “ is taking the steps necessary to end the employment of the individual involved in the collision.”
Correct. The Green Line’s origins are as a streetcar subway. The cars exited to surface running at various portals. The current lines all run on private right of way on the surface, usually in the center of a road. The “D” line runs to Riverside on a former Boston and Albany RR (NYC) branch. The “B” Line, where the accident occurred, is the Boston College via Commonwealth Ave line, which operates as double track in the center of Commonwealth Ave. at street level.
Crossings of intersecting streets are controlled by traffic signals along with parallel street traffic.
Separation of LRV’s are by operator’s discretion, as was the case with the PCC cars and the conventional streetcars before the PCC’s.
We should be careful about piling technology (and expenses) on light rail operation before the transit agency finds light rail is too expensive and has to convert to bus. MBTA’s “A” line was convered to bus route 57 in 1969. The Silver Line is a bus rapid transit line using buses that operate diesel on the surface and electric trackless trolley in the subway.
For those not familiar with the Green Line, it runs on glorified Visual Flight Rules. The Green Line includes America’s first subway (from the late 19th Century) and hasn’t been much updated since.
I’ll be the first to say that operators are responsible not to crash their trains, regardless of the deficiencies of the signal system. That being said, I have to wonder why the Green Line is so obsolete.
The overcrowded Green Line D-Riverside extension built on the cheap after the Korean War was a huge missed opportunity – to call it low tech is an underserved compliment even by the standards of the 1950’s. (We won’t even start on disabled access.)
I don’t live in Massachusetts so I can’t speak to the local politics — I have to wonder why the Green Line isn’t a priority for one huge upgrade. Read Brian Solomon’s column on Page 40 of the August 2020 edition of TRAINS MAGAZINE. Thirty years ago, the Germans figured out how to run the same light rail train with various technological formats as the train progresses and transitions from one segment of its route to the nest segment of its route. That’s what MBTA needs to do with the Green Line.