[PRCo] Re: METRORAIL DISASTER
Schneider Fred
fwschneider at comcast.net
Fri Jun 26 09:46:13 EDT 2009
Except that I've been criticized, and rightfully so for a flaw in
proof reading by Phil Craig. There should have been a "no" after
the word men. I have inserted it below in red.
On Jun 26, 2009, at 12:04 AM, Edson Tennyson wrote:
> THANK YOU, FRED, for that cogent comment.
> By my rough calculations, I think 12 people on board MetroRail
> trains have been killed in 33 years
> which I estimate is 0.04 fatalities per 100 million passenger-
> miles. The auto rate is about 0.9, 22.5 times
> mote dangerous than MetroRail, but still, I would disconnect that
> stupid automation for good. It is just an
> extra cost with less than no redeeming value. Old fashioned
> automatic train stop was almost, not quite perfect
> E d T e n n y s o n
>
> On Jun 24, 2009, at 3:44 PM, Schneider Fred wrote:
>
>> I have a problem with the word disaster in conjunction with an
>> accident that killed nine people on a system that moves a million
>> people a day, year in and year out to be stretching things just a
>> tad. So we've had three major accidents was it in 33 years and
>> in that time they have moved probably somewhere on the order of
>> magnitude of 6 billion revenue passengers. I think that's a
>> pretty damn good record.
>>
>> Gentlemen: There are no women who are 10s. There are no men
>> who are 10s. There is no such thing as perfection. It does not
>> exist.
>>
>> But I'll happily take my chances on WMATA before the Beltway
>> around DC or I-70 or I-95 or the Shirley Highway or I-64.
>>
>> Fred Schneider
>>
>>
>> On Jun 24, 2009, at 9:09 AM, Jack May wrote:
>>
>>> ‘ "I truly believe Metro is a safe system," Metro General Manager
>>> John B. Catoe Jr. said.’
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Red Line Train Operator Used Brakes In Failed Bid to Stop Six-Car
>>> Train
>>> Investigators Probe Site for Cause of Crash
>>> By Lena H. Sun and Lyndsey Layton, Washington Post Staff Writers
>>> Wednesday, June 24, 2009
>>>
>>> The operator of the Metro train that slammed into a stationary
>>> train in
>>> front of it apparently had activated the emergency brakes in a
>>> failed effort
>>> to stop before the accident, federal officials said yesterday as
>>> they
>>> searched for the cause of Monday's Red Line wreck that killed
>>> nine and
>>> injured 80. Debbie Hersman of the National Transportation Safety
>>> Board said
>>> the emergency brake button, known as the "mushroom," was
>>> depressed, and the
>>> steel rails showed evidence that the brakes were engaged.
>>> Investigators also
>>> said the striking train was in automatic mode, which means
>>> onboard computers
>>> should have controlled its speed and stopped it before it got too
>>> close to
>>> the stationary train. In addition, Metro sources said, the first
>>> two cars of
>>> that train were two months overdue for scheduled maintenance of
>>> some braking
>>> components.
>>>
>>> Taken together, experts say these facts point to several possible
>>> scenarios:
>>> The operator activated the brakes too late; the computers that
>>> are supposed
>>> to stop a train from getting too close to another train faltered;
>>> the
>>> train's brakes failed; or some combination of those. Some
>>> passengers on the
>>> striking train have said that they never felt the train slow
>>> down. A team of
>>> NTSB investigators painstakingly searched through the tangled
>>> heap of metal
>>> on the tracks just north of the Fort Totten Station in Northeast
>>> Washington.
>>> They were examining everything: the condition of the trains,
>>> track and
>>> signals; the actions of the operator and her downtown
>>> supervisors; and the
>>> computers that control train movement and are supposed to
>>> automatically
>>> prevent crashes. Investigators will also look at maintenance work
>>> performed
>>> this month on the computerized train control system along the
>>> stretch of
>>> track where the crash took place.
>>>
>>> Officials began to remove the cars from the trains yesterday and
>>> plan to try
>>> to experiment with similar trains to determine approximate speed and
>>> stopping distance, Hersman said. Service on the Red Line will
>>> continue to be
>>> disrupted while the investigation proceeds. The crash, the force
>>> of which
>>> vaulted the striking train atop the one it rammed, occurred on a
>>> curve where
>>> the speed limit is 59 mph, Hersman said. Today's experiment will
>>> also try to
>>> determine whether the curve, or anything else, obstructed the train
>>> operator's view of the stopped train. The operator, Jeanice
>>> McMillan, 42,
>>> was among those who died in the accident. Investigators will
>>> examine her
>>> cellphone and text-messaging records, review her work and rest
>>> schedule, and
>>> analyze blood samples, all standard NTSB procedures.
>>> Investigators are also
>>> delving into the automatic train protection system, which is
>>> designed to
>>> make collisions impossible. Had the system been working
>>> correctly, it would
>>> have sensed that Train 112 was getting too close to Train 214 and
>>> directed
>>> the brakes aboard Train 112 to engage.
>>>
>>> "I truly believe Metro is a safe system," Metro General Manager
>>> John B.
>>> Catoe Jr. said. Catoe said it was too early in the investigation
>>> to know
>>> what caused the crash, but he said there was "no evidence" that
>>> the operator
>>> was using a cellphone or texting at the time of the crash. After
>>> a special
>>> board meeting yesterday, he told reporters, "There's not a letter of
>>> evidence" to indicate operator error. And right now, he said,
>>> there is also
>>> no indication of signal failure.
>>>
>>> The six cars that made up Train 112 were put together in an
>>> unusual way.
>>> Metro trains operate in married pairs of cars, and the lead car
>>> is almost
>>> always an "A" car, which some operators say run more smoothly and
>>> communicate better with the electronic devices buried along the
>>> track. But
>>> in the case of Train 112, the lead car was a "B" car, Metro
>>> officials said.
>>> It was unclear last night why the train was configured that way.
>>> It was also
>>> unclear what effect, if any, the configuration could have had on
>>> the crash.
>>> The cars were among the oldest in Metro's fleet, purchased
>>> between 1974 and
>>> 1978 from Rohr Industries for the opening of the subway system.
>>> They have
>>> been rehabilitated and retrofitted "to keep them in good
>>> condition," said
>>> Metro board Chairman Jim Graham of the District. But federal
>>> investigators
>>> consider the cars to be unsafe because of a tendency during a
>>> crash to
>>> collapse into one another like a telescope, reducing the
>>> "survivability"
>>> space, or the area in a car in which passengers can escape harm.
>>> The force
>>> of the impact sheared the lead car of Train 112, pushing part of
>>> it onto the
>>> roof of the trailing car of Train 214 and slamming the rest into
>>> the body of
>>> Train 214. Two-thirds of Train 112's lead car was crushed,
>>> Hersman said.
>>>
>>> After a Rohr train telescoped during a 2004 crash at the Woodley
>>> Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan Station, the NTSB recommended that Metro
>>> retire the
>>> Rohrs or strengthen their frames to prevent collapse. But the
>>> transit agency
>>> declined, saying that the cars make up one-third of the fleet and
>>> that Metro
>>> could not afford to mothball them ahead of their planned
>>> retirement in 2014,
>>> and that retrofitting would be costly and impractical. The NTSB,
>>> which makes
>>> safety recommendations but has no enforcement authority,
>>> disagreed with
>>> Metro's stance, calling it "unacceptable" at the time.
>>>
>>> Yesterday, Hersman again questioned the safety of the Rohr cars
>>> and blamed
>>> Metro for failing to act. "We recommended to [Metro] to either
>>> retrofit
>>> those cars or phase them out of service," she said. "Those
>>> concerns were not
>>> addressed." Metro uses 290 1000 series cars, which make up more
>>> than 25
>>> percent of its 1,126-car fleet. Graham said replacing the cars
>>> would cost
>>> almost $1 billion, money that Metro does not have. Metro is the
>>> only major
>>> transit system in the country without a source of dedicated
>>> funds. The
>>> agency appeals every year to the District, Virginia and Maryland for
>>> funding, a situation that makes long-term planning difficult.
>>>
>>> The NTSB also recommended that Metro install data recorders,
>>> similar to the
>>> black boxes found in airplanes, in all of its cars after the 2004
>>> crash.
>>> Although the agency installed recorders in some of its newest
>>> cars, the Rohr
>>> cars did not have them -- a condition that Hersman also called
>>> unacceptable.
>>> Metro officials also did not install critical software revisions
>>> that would
>>> have allowed investigators to determine whether the operator had
>>> applied the
>>> emergency brakes and the train's speed during braking, according
>>> to a source
>>> knowledgeable about the braking systems. Investigators might be
>>> able to
>>> determine whether the emergency brakes were deployed based on
>>> physical
>>> evidence.
>>>
>>> Metro's automated system is built around electronic relays on the
>>> trains and
>>> buried along the track that allow onboard computers to control
>>> speeds and
>>> stop trains from getting too close to one another. Over the past
>>> decade,
>>> Metro has struggled with troublesome relays. The agency tore out
>>> all 20,000
>>> trackside relays in 1999 after discovering that a small portion
>>> designed to
>>> last 70 years were failing after 25. The manufacturer, Alstom
>>> Signaling,
>>> agreed to replace the relays at a cost to Metro of about $8
>>> million. None of
>>> the new relays have failed, one Metro official said. The NTSB and
>>> the
>>> Federal Transit Administration have criticized Metro for failing
>>> to act
>>> aggressively to address safety problems, especially at the time
>>> of a 1996
>>> crash at Shady Grove
>>> that killed a train operator.
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Edson Tennyson [mailto:etennyson at cox.net]
>>> Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 12:54 AM
>>> To: Al Schneider; Gary Olden; Lyndon Henry <NAWDRy at bga.com>
>>> <NAWDRy at bga.com>
>>> Cc: CRVLKOTULA at aol.com; fwschneider at comcast.net;
>>> philgcraig204 at yahoo.com; j_swindler at hotmail.com;
>>> billvigrass at verizon.net; bob.dietrich1 at verizon.net;
>>> bbente at bellsouth.net; trams2 at comcast.net; allmanr at verizon.net;
>>> rejmhj at netzero.net; shadow at dementia.org; Akftrain at aol.com;
>>> miklosfrank at comcast.net; jack.may at americomm.net;
>>> jaurelius at centurytel.net; russell.jackson at stvinc.com
>>> Subject: Re: METRORAIL DISASTER
>>>
>>> SHADY GROVE REAR END ACCIDENT THAT KILLED MOTORMAN
>>> I do not know which kind of car was in the Shady Grove fatality,
>>> but it had nothing to do with
>>> the car body design other than the brakes. It was a faulty brake
>>> design. All cars have the same faulty
>>> brake design.
>>> The brake design is very similar to my Silverliner commuter
>>> cars in Philadelphia we bought in 1964, ten
>>> years before Rohr. Budd invented a disc brake and wanted to sell
>>> it. They sold it to Califorfnia Zephyr
>>> and similar good trains and they demanded we take it. I said
>>> "NO." The railroads said "yes" It was good
>>> enough for Zeohyrs. it was good enough for fhem, It would save
>>> wheel wear. It really wouid. I agree.
>>> The problems were (1) we used no locomotives with brake shoes
>>> (and maybe dynamic brakes) to clean the
>>> wheels and rail. (2) Dirty wheels do not shunt signals well
>>> enough. (3) DIrty wheels may slide.
>>> We wanted dynamic brakes but P.RR would not allow them on eMU
>>> cars. They falsely said it would cost too
>>> much to maintain the motors. Research said otherwise but they
>>> were steadfast. My boss told me there would
>>> be no new cars if I did not give in so I had to accept a lousy
>>> brake system.
>>> In very cold, fine snow weather, with very cold wheels, ice
>>> builds up on the faces of the brake pads that grip the
>>> frozen brake discs. There is no brake as a result, until it
>>> wears off and warms up. Too late. and several wrecks
>>> but not bad enough to get top level attention UNTIL a train
>>> passed up the Chairman of the Board, Stuart Saunders
>>> and his chief of staff. FIRE THE MOTORMAN ! Yes sir. The union
>>> had a grievance proceedure and blamed
>>> the brakes. They often do that but time they were right. The
>>> procedure got the motorman his job back and
>>> the Chairman of the Board ordered disc brakes off the cars. In
>>> two weeks we had a whole fleet with tread brakes
>>> and warm wheels. Hot wheels some times, which was not good, but
>>> was safer than no winter brakes. I got the bill
>>> but I refused to pay it and told them why. They dod not sue me.
>>> WMATA had the very same problem, and dynamic brakes made it worse
>>> with colder wheels.
>>> The WMATA motorman knew he was in bad trouble so he asked the
>>> dispatcher (controller) for permission to cut
>>> out the automation which knew nothing about very cold brakes. The
>>> central control did not have the gumption to
>>> say "OK" so they said "NO". The Assistant General Manager
>>> insisted on automatic operation at all times.
>>> Within 15 minutes of being denied permission the poor dumb
>>> motorman was dead. I say dumb because it would have
>>> been better to lose his job than his life. He was a very good man
>>> but he followed evil orders. That Assistant General
>>> Manager was soon gone.. He was in many ways, an excellent
>>> manager but he was far too headstrong.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> E d T e n n y s o n
>>>
>>>
>>> On Jun 24, 2009, at 12:56 AM, alschneider2 at juno.com wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Wasn't the Shady Grove disaster that killed the operator also
>>> involve Rohrs?
>>>
>>> And the Rhode Island Av collision that destroyed one Rohr
>>> occurred around 1980.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Alan L. Schneider
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ____________________________________________________________
>>> You're never too old to date. Senior Dating. Click Here.
>>>
>>
>
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