Maspeth Grade Crossing Accident

Yes, I also eagerly await the results of the official investigation. I imagine it will be quite interesting to say the least.

Steve, I still stand by my last comment.

It is very easy to see how fast the train was going via a download. What the video helps illustrate is the integrity of the gates at the ROW. One of the other things in question are the qualifications of the crew members involved.

As I said on the NY&A board thread, isn't the dashcam footage off a Filco truck? Filco was once a customer on the bushwick branch. Stopped shipping maybe 10 years ago. The switch is pulled right under the scott ave footbridge. Who knows if there is bad blood there - that makes the source footage in regard to speed something for the NTSB to figure out. ABC7 also showed footage of a yard move not using the manually controlled crossing gate - which is moot since they use a 3 man crew with flagging when they switch there. Showing this footage (conveniently edited to not show the flagman) cheapens the argument made in that news report and throws the dashcam footage into question. If you're not questioning what you see on TV, throw the thing out your window because you're watching it wrong.

I'll happily wait for the actual report. Maybe speed was a factor, maybe bad wiring, shitty maintenance, or the fact that the crew was working a new job with a heavily loaded train going up a grade are all factors too. I'll bet a nickel there was more than one contributing factor. Even if the train was going too fast, that crossing gate is a badly wired piece of shit that should have been set to go down long before the train got there. Let drivers sit and wait a few extra seconds if they must. Boo Hoo.

The only real way to make that accident prone crossing (which is in the middle of a yard) safe is to remove the street entirely. Let NYC DOT build an underpass. Oh wait, nevermind, they don't even fix potholes anymore.

Slippy wrote:Steve, I still stand by my last comment.

Thus, any references to my website should not be linked? The Monthly LIRR update should go away? Please indicate how to resolve this: :...discussion is a welcomed departure of the abundant topics promoting your website..." in your opinion?

If it's annoying to you, state so. Perhaps others might chime in on this... Should I stop posting; as the forums have succeeded in chasing SO many others, with info? Folks, chime in: Should I stop posting, is it annoying, quit the links, etc.

Once again we are off topic: I commented on this post thread and where it was headed and you replied about me.

nyandw wrote:Folks, chime in: Should I stop posting, is it annoying, quit the links, etc.

Steve I hope you won't.

As I said on the NY&A board thread, isn't the dashcam footage off a Filco truck? Filco was once a customer on the bushwick branch. Stopped shipping maybe 10 years ago. The switch is pulled right under the scott ave footbridge. Who knows if there is bad blood there - that makes the source footage in regard to speed something for the NTSB to figure out. ABC7 also showed footage of a yard move not using the manually controlled crossing gate - which is moot since they use a 3 man crew with flagging when they switch there. Showing this footage (conveniently edited to not show the flagman) cheapens the argument made in that news report and throws the dashcam footage into question. If you're not questioning what you see on TV, throw the thing out your window because you're watching it wrong. I'll happily wait for the actual report. Maybe speed was a factor, maybe bad wiring, * maintenance, or the fact that the crew was working a new job with a heavily loaded train going up a grade are all factors too. I'll bet a nickel there was more than one contributing factor. Even if the train was going too fast, that crossing gate is a badly wired piece of * that should have been set to go down long before the train got there. Let drivers sit and wait a few extra seconds if they must. Boo Hoo.The only real way to make that accident prone crossing (which is in the middle of a yard) safe is to remove the street entirely. Let NYC DOT build an underpass. Oh wait, nevermind, they don't even fix potholes anymore.

Wait indeed!
Lets see here . . . FilCo 'gets back' at the NY&A for 'causing them' (FilCo) to stop shipping by having one of their trucks pulling up to a grade crossing WITH THE GATES CLEARLY UP while the train crew blows the crossing AT SPEED rather that STOPPING AS REQUIRED!

I do notice the crossing flashers lights DO BEGIN TO OPERATE just as the train strikes the semi-truck/trailer kind of letting the hot air out of the 'rusty rail/bad wiring' theory yes?
This would be expected of a delayed operation type of gate setup where the train was SUPPOSED TO STOP before entering the crossing.

I understand the rules for that particular crossing are: 1.approach crossing at 10mph. 2. stop at said crossing and WAIT for gates to activate. 3. proceed through crossing.
Sorry, the video evidence clearly contradicts your ranting.

Your mention of a WABC news crew showing a three man crew correctly flagging the crossing at some other time is indeed moot. So why did you even mention it?
Sorry, no points scored for mentioning that DogBert. wink:

The train involved in the negligent operation was clearly traveling at greater than 10mph.
Speeded up video? Ha ha ha ha... That's completely nuts DogBert because If that were true EVERYTHING in the video would also be running faster . . . and clearly they are not.

And as it turns out THAT IS MOOT ALSO!! Did you forget that the train was required to STOP before entering the crossing? Oops . . . .
This train didn't even come close to stopping DogBert!
And THAT uncomfortable truth cannot be explained away by speeded up video bullcrap!

Aside to Steve: Keep up the excellent work you are doing and many thanks for it.
Regards,
vince

I agree with Vince. As the video clearly shows, the railroad is obviously negligent in one form or another. It's supposed to be safe for a vehicle to enter the crossing if the lights are not flashing and gates aren't down. The railroad is very lucky the truck driver wasn't killed. As it is the trucking company and the driver will probably win a decent lawsuit against the railroad. And good for Filco for fitting their trucks with dashcams so they can prove what actually happened in just this kind of situation. 'Cause without that video, no one (least of all me) would have believed this actually happened the way it did.

Face it, this requirement that a train stop at that crossing - or any crossing for that matter - is completely batshit insane. You have a crossing, it has gates - the gates should go down when there's a train approaching, and the gates should be down well before the train arrives. PERIOD. This is what everyone is taught to expect at RR crossings from a very early age. (Or did you not get that memo?)

If there's some rule that the train is suppose to stop there, and the gates are set up to not go down until the train arrives - that is a pathetic, broken system and perhaps the stupidest rule ever written. It's actually just the sort of stupidity I'd expect from the MTA (who maintains these tracks and crossing gates). It shows we've learned ABSOLUTELY NOTHING from the bushwick runaway incident several years ago. 4 people were nearly killed in that incident - you'd certainly think the MTA would know better and have gates activate when a train is approaching.

MTA/LIRR/whoever can make all the rules they want, but reality is that humans make mistakes. In this case, it certainly *looks* like the engineer made a mistake, but the reality of having a crossing gate that did not operate in a manner that anyone with half a brain stem would expect is 100% a contributing factor. Unless you have some special super power you're not telling us, the dashcam video doesn't tell us the exact train speed - it does however show us the gates didn't go down until it was far, far too late - that is 100% not acceptable - regardless of if the train was suppose to stop or not, or was moving too fast.

No points for you vince, none.

I'll happily wait on the NTSB report. I'll trust their conclusions long before I'll trust the conclusions of a trash truck driver and a for-profit news outlet specializing in sensationalist one-sided reporting (or anyone on the internet for that matter). I suspect the NTSB will be questioning the train's speed right along side the apparent MTA logic of having a crossing gate that does not go down when a train is approaching - which again flies in the face of everything everyone's parents taught them, what the state teaches in drivers ed, etc.

Dogbert,

Is the NTSB involved? I would think just the governing body FRA. These are how all the sidings that have streets running through them on the LIRR maybe with the exceptions of trains diverging from the main. You have to pull up to them on the island circuit slow and steady to get the gates to be lowered. When the LIRR had these sections and still do in Long Island City there were special instructions on how to activate the gates and proceed over the crossings.

I'm assuming as may have been mentioned with these areas may have been downgraded where the train has no choice but to basically stop and activate the island circuit. I remember an article in Long Island's Newsday stating the general chairman of the LIRR signal union thought it was a bad idea to deactivate the signals and crossing gate warnings. Obviously he was both concerned about safety and work for his membership. Luckily no one was killed, but some rules may change down there. LIRR I believe shed the branch to avoid having to install PTC on that nine mile section.

Face it, this requirement that a train stop at that crossing - or any crossing for that matter - is completely batshit insane. You have a crossing, it has gates - the gates should go down when there's a train approaching, and the gates should be down well before the train arrives. PERIOD. This is what everyone is taught to expect at RR crossings from a very early age. (Or did you not get that memo?)

If there's some rule that the train is suppose to stop there, and the gates are set up to not go down until the train arrives - that is a pathetic, broken system and perhaps the stupidest rule ever written. It's actually just the sort of stupidity I'd expect from the MTA (who maintains these tracks and crossing gates). It shows we've learned ABSOLUTELY NOTHING from the bushwick runaway incident several years ago. 4 people were nearly killed in that incident - you'd certainly think the MTA would know better and have gates activate when a train is approaching.

Just like there are no 40 MPH electric freights running on the Bay Ridge Branch anymore, there are no 40 MPH trains on the Lower Montauk either. The track has been downgraded to secondary status and is not signaled. As a result, the speed is dropped to 10MPH and the crossing protection has been adjusted accordingly - to only be activated when the train reaches the island circuit. This is to PREVENT grade crossing accidents by having the gates being lowered for extended periods of time for slow moving trains and or trains stopped while switching. Yes, we are taught to expect trains when the gates come down, but in this instance the railroad didn't give that truck driver a chance because they didn't follow the rules.

jayrmli wrote:

"...The track has been downgraded to secondary status and is not signaled. As a result, the speed is dropped to 10MPH and the crossing protection has been adjusted accordingly - ... Yes, we are taught to expect trains when the gates come down, but in this instance the railroad didn't give that truck driver a chance because they didn't follow the rules.

Seems a reasonable observation from Jaymli... The rule is 10mph and stop. The trucker saw no gates/flashers thus moved forward. = crash. What am I missing here folks?

There should be a GN or GO about the changes to the lower Montauk,also a special instruction about the
grade crossings that requires a STOP or a SLOW approach to the crossing untill KNOWN that the
lights/gates ARE working.....

"......................................snip the curious content.................................
No points for you vince, none.

Was not looking to 'score points'. Just providing factual information. (and correcting false information when I spot it)

I'll happily wait on the NTSB report

I'm not sure you'll be happy about the results.
Have you read any of their accident reports? Brutally honest and to the point.

the dashcam video doesn't tell us the exact train speed -

Well, That turns out not to be the case at all!
The frames per second of the video are of course known. Also known is the encoding bit rate of the video.
Thus the distance the train moves from one video frame to the next can be directly correlated to the trains speed.

It's actually quite a trivial calculation.
You might not have known that but it is well known in the tech field.
Video's are quite the thing eh? It's gonna' take folks a while you can't hide when everyone has a camera!
Look what a simple video of a politician speaking from the heart lost him an election.
What was that old radio (heh, yes, I go back a way) show that ended it's broadcasts with a mysterious voice saying:
". . The Shadow Knows"
Only now, it the camera. And I applaud it's keeping people honest.
regards,
vince
btw, here's the crossing . . . They had a human watching things back in the day. I know it cost's bucks but it was a job that saved lives.
back to pounding spikes at mp20 on the Central.
v

Below is a Streetview photo of the crossing I previously posted in the NY&A forum. We're looking along Maspeth Avenue towards Rust Street (the direction the truck was traveling on Wednesday morning; the eastbound train was moving left-to-right). The crossing gate closest to the camera on the right is located at Yard Track 8. The gate further away on the right is at main track 2 and the gate furthest from the camera, on the left, is located at main track 1.

Vince you seem to lack an understanding of what I'm stating:

I don't think the dashcam footage in and of itself is a bad thing. Hell, the RR should have their own impeachable cameras on those crossings too. The RR should have their own dashcams (if they don't already).

When a news outlet combines one set of footage (that seems factual on it's own - the dashcam) with another (an edited clip showing a crossing gate not working yet cut not to show the flagman), it's obvious that news outlet is more interested in sensationalist soundbites than facts. The footage itself, assuming it's unedited, is not a bad thing - it's all about how it's used.

Fortunately, I'm sure whoever is investigating this will get the source video and ignore the news outlet spin - and hopefully look at all the various problems that contributed to this accident.

The dashcam video shows the gates did not activate until it was far, far too late - and that was certainly a contributing factor, just as much as train speed. If you (or anyone) can't see that, you're kidding yourselves. The average citizen is taught one thing: look both ways and crossing gates will come down in advance of an approaching train. That didn't happen. After the bushwick runaway incident, the MTA/LIRR should have known better. The RRs can right all the rules they want in regard to this, but your average citizen does not know and does not care. They will (hopefully) look both ways and assume there is no train coming if the gates and flashers are not already going off.

Speaking of looking both ways, the aggregate customer in the yard put up a wall of cement blocks that obscures drivers views (I know this, because again I drive through this crossing often and have for years - before that wall went up maybe 4 years ago). The truck driver wouldn't have seen the train's headlights until it was just about too late. Even if he did see lights behind the wall, one could reasonably assume it was just another vehicle on the parallel street. I'd expect this to be a contributing factor pointed out in the brutal honesty of any investigative report (regardless of if it's carried out by NTSB, FRA, etc).

So there's a number of factors, some 'more important' than others, yet all adding up to an avoidable accident: badly configured crossing gate, train speed, visibility (for both driver and train - that wall might be taller than a locomotive cab), the curvature of the track (again, limiting visibility) a grade, and a new train on a route that up until this last month, no train crews have had experience pulling a heavy loaded train on. I suspect this last one is part of the 'why' the train was apparently moving too fast. Again, I'll say apparently, because while the video the news showed looks obvious, in my eyes they blew the validity of the story by solely blaming train speed when there's a whole lot of other things wrong with this crossing. Not discussing those issues doesn't do the driver or anyone else any justice, nor will it improve the safety of the crossing - which I certainly hope is the point of investigating this properly.

Again, I'll happily wait for that report and hope it's used to make changes in how that crossing is set up. There's certainly enough blame to spread around. Changes need to be made or the crossing simply needs to be closed.