NTSB hearing to commence 11/6

Starting today, 11/6 the NTSB will begin its investigative hearings for the Bridgeport derailment resulting in a head on collision as well as the death of Bobby Luden, track foreman whom was killed when an RTC trainee lined a westbound into his out of service track. Top brass both in management and labor are expected to be present for this 2 day hearing. You can watch the live video stream, which starts at 9am EST.

http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/2013/br ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm watching it and all I can say is "wow"!! MN is going to get slammed for a lot of shortcomings. Stay tuned!!

Hopefully today's proceedings will be archived by the time I get home this evening, I'm interested in seeing what happens but can't watch right now.

One of the issues that has come up at the hearing is problems with joining rail of two different weights; 136 lb. rail to 131 lb. rail in the case of the May 17 accident, for example. My question is, why do railroads inventory more than one weight of rail for installation if using the same rail weight everywhere would eliminate these problems? H.F.C.

Ok so what did I miss? How bad was it?

hcobin wrote:One of the issues that has come up at the hearing is problems with joining rail of two different weights; 136 lb. rail to 131 lb. rail in the case of the May 17 accident, for example. My question is, why do railroads inventory more than one weight of rail for installation if using the same rail weight everywhere would eliminate these problems? H.F.C.

Most of them don't. The MBTA did a massive systemwide audit to inventory every piece of CWR on its lines and standardize on nuthin' but 136 lb. Any stretches of lighter rail were immaculately documented so they knew where to prioritize rolling replacements, all their ongoing capital projects for track improvements are purging the lightweight stuff inside the individual project areas for uniform 136, and any exceptions where lightweight must be used were documented as specific exceptions. It let them save a lot of money standardizing on one rail type for bulk ordering and to minimize over-ordering of lightweight stock in the specific places where for one reason or another lightweight must be retained.

There's well-reasoned exceptions to one-size-fits-all, but they very deliberately try to avoid having spaghetti track and to keep the deviations from standard at an absolute minimum with prioritized purges and good documentation.


I'm gonna go out on a limb here and conjecture that MNRR's record-keeping probably isn't quite as thorough re: what weight is installed on what piece of ribbon.

RearOfSignal wrote:Ok so what did I miss? How bad was it?

I wouldn't call it a lynching, but the NTSB did ask a lot of questions about why/when the rail joint in question (north rail track 4 @ MP 53.25) broke, was repaired then broke again and "pumping action" (mud spots) were not addressed. Questions were also brought up about welding/grinding of 136 rail to 131 rail at the location. From pictures shown, the welding had broken off the head of the 131 rail. Questions were asked about track inspection reports (not having enough detail) and why when tracks 3&1 were taken out and train traffic doubled on 2&4 there were not extra inspections made. MN answered the questions as best they could and specifically answered about extra inspections: it is not required under FRA regulations. MN did spend a lot of time explaining what they have changed since the derailment/sideswipe. A lot of talk was why MN did not have/use a geometry car as Amtrak and NJT do. I didn't hear anything about Sperry Rail and what they did/did not find in their inspections. The one really interesting thing was a picture of track 4 with the broken joiner bars visible 45 minutes prior to 1548 derailing. It was taken from the forward looking camera on an Amtrak train. All in all it was just a lot of questions asked and answered without any real finger pointing or blaming. But I think it is clear MN is preparing to get nailed with some hefty fines and may have to retrain or replace some M/W personnel.

Grinding and welding rail to make it fit up. I thought that crap went out of style in the 80s. Sounds like they don't know what compromise joints are if they had to do that.

The bits I watched of it had some folks from FRA squirming in their seats.

NTSB has an IOU for Metro North regarding M8 training.

Here's a link to the official NTSB "docket" for this accident investigation:
http://dms.ntsb.gov/pubdms/search/hitli ... N=42393011
In the docket you will find all 243 pieces of information that the NTSB has collected to date.

Of particular interest are the interviews (on page 3 & 4 of the docket index) of the operating crew member members from each train:
http://dms.ntsb.gov/pubdms/search/hitli ... XTSEARCHT=

and document 242 (Image Recorder & Security Camera Factual Report) which included images from cameras that were mounted in the cab of earlier Amtrak trains that passed through the area where the accident occurred:
http://dms.ntsb.gov/pubdms/search/docum ... mkey=86937

BenH wrote:and document 242 (Image Recorder & Security Camera Factual Report) which included images from cameras that were mounted in the cab of earlier Amtrak trains that passed through the area where the accident occurred:
http://dms.ntsb.gov/pubdms/search/docum ... mkey=86937

Thanks for the links. Figure #7, frame 7016 is the real money shot:

If the rail joint is broken wouldn't that trigger the signal system to a stop indication?

no only if a field weld breaks, at joint bars there is a bond wire to guarantee the Neutral return for Catenary power.

BobLI wrote:If the rail joint is broken wouldn't that trigger the signal system to a stop indication?

In theory yes, but in this case the joint like all joints was bonded around for traction return. So even though the joint broke the bond wires kept the circuit intack.

What's interesting is, the photo above was taken by the nose camera in the locomotive of Amtrak Train 55 passing the accident site at 5:13 PM forty-eight minutes before the accident. Thirty minutes later -- just eighteen minutes before MNR 1548 derailed -- Amtrak 148 passes the accident site and on the same track, Track 4. Amtrak 148 apparently passed over the break without incident. The NTSB notes in the audio tape from 148:

At 04:12 [on the tape] a discontinuity in sun glare (Figure 1) on the left most accident rail becomes visible...At 04:14, the discontinuity is no longer visible and a distinctive, loud, mechanical clacking noise is noted on the audio track. Immediately afterward...a prominent shimmy on the image recorder’s field of view is observed...Around 04:17 any distinguishable motion ceases and the audio track quickly returns to a steady state operational noise as the train continues on eastbound out of the vicinity of the accident site.

Sounds like those Amtrak riders on 148 were lucky!

Here's Figure 1 referred to above.