"Rail worker faulted in past"

From today's Journal News, and also covered on WCBS News Radio 880.

A Metro-North Railroad engineer who crashed his train at Grand Central Terminal in August had been suspended several times before — for driving too fast, failing to stop at a station and not showing up for work, according to records obtained by The Journal News..................
......After Metro-North fired him in 2002, he and the union appealed, setting up a federal arbitration process that ended up forcing the railroad to rehire him.

http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsroom/ ... ineer.html

The purpose of an arbitration hearing is to determine whether the grounds for dismissal were fair, and whether the employee's rights were respected and company's rules were followed.

You don't get an arb hearing by demanding one. You get it by showing evidence.

In most railroad hearings, the company is investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner.

The third party considers a case like this for many factors. Was the
individual afforded a fair and impartial hearing? were all of the provisions
of the contract followed? are there any mitigating factors that should have
been considered and many other points.
The decision of this third party are generally binding on all parties.
Sometimes the union and the company will negiotiate an agreed upon
settlement in which an agreed discipline is assessed.
In some cases years ago, I faulted the training program for some of this
stuff. Metro-North in particular stresses one time performance all of the
time and I have seen a few cases where safe operation seemed to be a
second priority. Now before I get burned over this remark, this was in
excess of ten years ago and in fact before my 1987 return to Conrail.
There were a couple of cases where I had a student and had to take them
out of the seat because they were going too fast for the track or the
signal indication.
Maybe the individual in this case needs to be re-trained in the operating
rules, train operation etc before he again runs a train. Maybe this individual can be employed in another position other than operating a
passenger train.
Most important, he/she should not be convicted by the press nor by us on
here until the proper proceedures have completely run their course.
Noel Weaver

why were the conductors suspended also? they don't actually control the speed of the train or whether or not it stops in the exact right spot.

<i>why were the conductors suspended also? they don't actually control the speed of the train or whether or not it stops in the exact right spot.</i>

My guess is that the conductor's responsible for the train, thus he gets blamed too.

thats a bum rap,
thats like taking away the parents drivers liscense if their kid gets a DWI.

Both the conductor & the assistant were restored to duty later that day (day of accident). They were taken out as a matter of course until the facts of the incident could be obtained.

Being satisfied with the conductors answers, they were both restored to duty the following day.

As for the engineer - I have a feeling that he won't be operating any trains any time soon.

<i>Both the conductor & the assistant were restored to duty later that day (day of accident). They were taken out as a matter of course until the facts of the incident could be obtained. </i>

That too. Isn't it SOP to take the entire crew, test them, and interview them, after anything like this happens?

<i>
Being satisfied with the conductors answers, they were both restored to duty the following day.
</i>

I read the train was going pretty slow when it bumped, so the conductor probbably didn't know and couldn't have known what was comming. of course, had the train been whizzing into the terminal or what not, things might be different...