WASHINGTON — An operator who “exceeded maximum authorized speed due to his loss of situational awareness” was the probable cause of a July 2021 collision between two Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority light rail vehicles, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a report released Thursday, Jan. 5.
The operator, who told authorities that he may have fallen asleep, failed to apply brakes before his train, going 33 mph, rear-ended a train going 10 mph in the July 30, 2021, incident on the MBTA’s Green Line B Branch.
Twenty-four passengers and three crew members were transported to local hospitals with minor injuries as a result of the collision, which derailed one car of the train that hit the preceding equipment [see “MBTA light rail operator arraigned …,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 7, 2021]. The equipment sustained about $2 million in damage.
The collision occurred shortly after 6 p.m., near the intersection of Commonwealth Avenue and Harry Agganis Street in Brookline, Mass. The Green Line has a 25 mph speed limit, with a 10 mph limit in intersections; the train was 23 mph over the latter speed limit at the time of the accident.
The MBTA is now in the process of installing a train protection system intended to mitigate the risk of collisions between trains. It is scheduled to be in operation by June 2025, the report notes.
First, MBTA’s Green Line B Branch is the line to Boston College via Commonweath Ave. It uses light rail vehicles and was a streetcar line that had run in the center reservation between traffic lanes of Commonwealth Ave. I do not believe it was ever signalled although another system might have used Nachod signals or automatic block signals.
The next question is, do the cars have any form of dead man switch or Alertor.
PCC cars have a left foot pedal that must be kept pushed in, or an alarm will sound and the car will stop.
Boston, not Brookline.
Fine. More millions spent so people can fall asleep operating “trams” at 6pm. Now put simple signals in a few places of the Mattapan-Ashmont line which currently is line-of-sight operation. Then you might not have to repair so many antique PCC cars.