4 Dead in Metro-North Train Derailment in the Bronx

[thelakelander]

At least four people were killed after a Metro-North Railroad train derailed Sunday morning in the Bronx along the Hudson River, officials said. A total of 67 people were injured, including 11 critically, a New York Fire Department spokesman, Jim Long, said.

full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/nyregion/metro-north-derailment.html?_r=0

[Lunican]

This is on the other side of the Spuyten Duyvil station where a CSX garbage train derailed this past July. 

[mtraininjax]

Speed limit at the place of derailment was 30MPH. Those cars and the damages of the people on the train do not look like a 30MPH derailment.....

[spuwho]

Driver said the brakes didn't respond. Its a 30mph curve that follows a 70mph stretch. That would explain such a long throw of the cars.

[SightseerLounge]

That train must've been going really fast around that curve! 4 dead! Damn! I'm glad that the train did not go in the water! That is a notorious area!

[spuwho]

Driver confessed he was in a "daze" while coming up to the curve. Haven't seen the black box report, but if it matches his story, it sounds like he hit the brakes too late.

[I-10east]

They said that the train was going three times faster then it should have on that stretch.

[JayBird]

According to the news reports up here, train was traveling at 82mph at the time of derailment. A representative from the MTA Engineers union stated yesterday the engineer admitted to "nodding off" and reacting to the emergency 6 seconds before the crash. That union rep was then removed from the investigation by the NTSB for breaching confidentiality. The engineer was on his first run of a 9-hr workday which started at 5:04am and it was day 2 in his 5 day work week. Alcohol has been ruled out, and it would appear that he was not lacking sleep due to work. This has brought a lot of criticism and will have additional of the entire MTA system by the NTSB for their operational procedures.

Most likely this will also bring more safety requirements to commuter rail such as automatic braking if too fast at certain stretches. But, as a user of the system I think MTA does a good job protecting its riders. Between the Subway, Long Island Rail Road and Metro North Rail Road along with coordinating amtrak, NJTransit and freight trains on its tracks ... It has a lot of balls in the air at once and very very rarely drops one.

[mtraininjax]

It has a lot of balls in the air at once and very very rarely drops one.

I'm sure that's of great comfort to the families of the 4 dead people.

Tough to want to hate the guy who worked his way up from Custodian at Grand Central Station to Engineer, but all fingers are pointing to him as the cause of the derailment.

[Ocklawaha]

I love the media and the modern invisibility of the railroad industry in the USA. Trains have 'drivers' in Europe, in North America they have engineers. LOL. While I'm at it they also DON'T have tankers (though ships do) or flat beds (though truck do) and "...the 'signs' were all functioning" whatever the hell that means.

Reviewing the photos Monday, it was pretty obvious that one of four things happened here. Excessive speed being my first consideration, in this case it may have been due to a seizure, tumor or some other medical condition. Maybe so, bay be not.

Item two, a broken rail (they can snap like toothpicks on rare occasions) this is due to impurities in the rail that enter the metal when it is poured. Just like cracks (inclusions) in gem stones they are weak spots that can cause catastrophic failure.

Item three, a broken wheel, often a failure that starts with the same inclusions but with the added push of flat spots caused by improper or excessive braking. Consider to that the wheels on the outside of any curve are traveling farther then the wheels on the inside of the same curve. IE: somebody is dragging or somebody is spinning... this only on extremely sharp curves, but that one doesn't look too broad.

Wheels are poured at about 3,300 degrees from the HIGHEST grades and qualities of steel, they are infused with argon gas which delineates phosphorus and hydrogen both of which will cause inclusions. The argon is then vacuumed out of the finished piece. Even with these precautions they still creep in and so equipment has been developed to check both rails and wheels on a regular basis usually with ultrasonics or magnetic instruments. Thus my causes 2 and 3 are lower on my list then item one.

Lastly, a more remote possibility in a place like New York where the city sits atop solid granite, a rock so hard they can tunnel through it and anchor monster skyscrapers with ease. (Yes Martha, solid hard rock is EASIER to tunnel through then decomposed debris). But near the water or in many other locations say like Florida, Georgia, California or Oklahoma where a week of rain can turn the soil to mush, a soft roadbed can also be a catastrophe causer. As I've mentioned before when you pat the sand repeatedly near the shore, you will 'pump up' water and you'll notice how the sand becomes almost liquid. Add weeds, grass, trash and dirt to a firm rock roadbed and you can actually create the same situation. How? Just roll over it with 350,000 pounds bearing all of it's weight on a surface about the size of a few quarters.

So those are my predictions, lets see if any others pop up.

[BridgeTroll]

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/asleep+at+the+switch

asleep at the switch

Fig. not attending to one's job; failing to do one's duty at the proper time. (Alludes to a technician or engineer on a train sleeping instead of turning whatever switches are required.