"32 hurt in early-morning derailment of Chicago train" | Associated Press March 25, 2014
CHICAGO — An eight-car public-transit train jumped the tracks, skidded across a platform, and went up an escalator that leads to one of the nation’s busiest airports early Monday, injuring 32 people.
Investigators had not drawn any conclusions into the cause of the derailment at the end of the Blue Line at O’Hare International Airport, but were looking into whether faulty brakes, signals, or human error were factors, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Tim DePaepe said Monday....
Robert Kelly, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 308, said there were indications the operator dozed off. Kelly said the operator told him she had worked a lot of overtime recently and was ‘‘extremely tired.’’
The timing of the crash — just before 3 a.m. Monday — helped avoid an enormous disaster, as the underground Blue Line station is usually packed with travelers coming to and from Chicago....
And Boston is getting late night T service starting this weekend (with fare hike, of course)?
Investigators will review video footage from a camera in the station and one that was mounted on the front of the train, DePaepe said. The train will remain at the scene until the NTSB has finished some of its investigators, after which crews will remove the train and fix the escalator that has ‘‘significant damage.’’
Hours after the crash, the front of the first car could still be seen near the top of the escalator.
While the station is shut down, the CTA was busing passengers to and from O’Hare to the next station on the line.
The train appeared to have been going too fast as it approached the station and did not stop at a bumping post, a metal shock absorber at the end of the tracks.
It was a Silver Streak!
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"Operator in Chicago train crash admits she dozed on job before" Associated Press March 27, 2014
CHICAGO — The operator of a Chicago commuter train that crashed at O’Hare International Airport acknowledged she dozed off before the accident and told investigators she had fallen asleep at the controls one other time recently — even overshooting a station platform, a federal investigator disclosed Wednesday.
Before the crash, the operator had been running trains on the nation’s second-largest public transportation system for just two months. Monday’s accident injured more than 30 people.
She woke up only as the eight-car train jolted onto the platform and barreled up an escalator leading into the airport.
The accident occurred around 3 a.m., as the driver was nearing the end of her shift.
The woman had an erratic work schedule, and investigators were looking to see if that played a role in her evident fatigue.
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Related:
"Tuesday’s announcement that a piece of emergency safety equipment might have failed was the first indication the accident could have been caused by human error and mechanical failure."
Also see: Rockefeller Fell Asleep at Switch
Don't sleep on the train ride home.
