Saturday, February 7, 2015

Slow Saturday Special: State Neglected Safety in New York Train Crash

"Some planned safety work at fatal N.Y. train crash site was never performed" Associated Press  February 07, 2015

NEW YORK —The third set of warning lights was proposed for a spot 100 to 200 feet from the crossing. It would have allowed drivers approaching around a slight bend to see the warning signals a few seconds sooner.

After numerous inquiries, state and railroad officials were unable to explain why the work on the lights wasn’t done. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash.

As for whether the extra lights could have prevented the tragedy, state Transportation Department spokesman Beau Duffy said: ‘‘It’s way too early to be guessing about what could have or couldn’t have made a difference.’’

So who stole the $126,000?

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FLASHBACK:

"On Wednesday, witnesses, survivors, and investigators strained to make sense of the fatal Metro-North Railroad crash in a New York suburb. Moments before the crash, there was little sign of trouble. Riders had settled into the relative calm of their Tuesday evening commutes — texting, reading, listening to music, clustered at the crossing gate for the tracks. At the front of the line was Ellen Brody, 49, a Greenburgh resident and mother of three children, authorities said. She had left the jewelry store where she worked around 6 p.m. and was en route to Scarsdale to meet a friend, according to co-workers. It was dark, fellow drivers recalled, and perhaps she did not know at first that she had passed the gate. The gate struck the back passenger side edge of Brody’s vehicle, according to Rick Hope, the driver behind her, then slid down further and came to rest pressing in on the top of a window. The vehicle, a Mercedes, appeared to be short of the tracks but inside the gate, Hope said, before the crossing alarm began to blare. “As soon as I see the gate go down, I back up,” Hope said outside his Yorktown Heights home. “I say, ‘She’s going to back up as soon as she sees what’s going on.’” But instead, Brody calmly got out of her car, Hope said. She walked around the back, pushed up against the gate, and found it wedged firmly in place. Hope said he began to panic, knowing a train would come through in seconds. He said he motioned with his hands at Brody to come toward him. He backed his car up more, thinking she might follow his lead. For a split second, he said, she looked at him. He thought she might walk away from the car. Instead she walked back to the driver’s seat and climbed in. There was a pause, he said, as if she were buckling her seat belt. “The thing’s dinging, red lights are flashing, it’s going off,” Hope said. “I just remember going, ‘Hurry up.’ I just knew she was going to back up — never in my wildest dreams did I think she’d go forward.”