Blue Line CTA derails at O'Hare

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chakk said:
I am somewhat surprised that there were as many as 32 people around at 3 AM to be injured. Or, are the CTA trains like many of the "Night Owl" bus routes here in the San Francisco area that homeless people are allowed to use as "moving hotels" -- so long as they pay the regular fares?
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Sort of. The Red Line is like that too, since it runs 24 hours.

There are also a lot of shift workers at O'Hare; though, I admit I don't know when the typical shift changes take place or when various crews need to report for duty.

Not to mention, some people who stay at the hotels near O'Hare take advantage of the free shuttle service. They take the Blue Line to the airport and then call for a shuttle.
 
chakk said:
I am somewhat surprised that there were as many as 32 people around at 3 AM to be injured.
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I wondered about that too. Based on the news articles I've read today, the train included:

--A 26-year-old TSA agent on the way to her shift

--A 23-year-old "security guard" on the way to her shift (could be TSA, but wasn't specified)

--A 21-year-old who was meeting his g/f who was getting off her shift at McDonalds (I assume McD's has at least one 24/7 outlet there)

--A 60-year-old man whose reason for being on the train was not specified

--A 22-year-old who was on the way to her shift at Hudson News

--The operator of the train

So that's six of the (at least) 32 people on the train. (I've not heard reports of anyone on the platform being injured.)

It's really a slice of life that most of us here encounter rarely. Shift workers using public transit in the middle of the night. The people

who (like it or not, in the case of TSA) arrive early and work late at airports so that we can travel.

As a college student in Philadelphia, I had a job for about 18 months that required me to ride public transit to work at 4 AM. Despite living

a half-block from a subway stop, I had to use a "Night Owl" bus since the subways in Philly don't run 24/7 (except a few of the Green Line

trolleys).
 
I read an article that stated the operator was tired due to working a large amount of overtime over the past week. I would love to know exactly how much overtime this person worked and what (if) they were working in violation of hours of service regulations. I also wonder if there are different rules for subway motormen than for locomotive engineers. If I'm the CTA an incident like this would cause me to take a hard look at how overtime is allocated and look to negotiate the institution of a cap.
 
Ryan is correct. The CTA is not regulated by the FRA in any way, and they have no hours of service regulations like locomotive engineers do. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some changes made because of this accident.

Unfortunately it's cheaper to run with a very minimal amount of employees and just work them to the bone, and that seems to be what's done. I feel very bad for the operator. I can't imagine how she feels. At least no one was killed, though.
 
It wouldn't be unusual at all for that many people to be on an L in Chicago at those hours. (Maybe all the more so on the Red Line, actually.) What one would legitimately wonder about is whether they were all truly going to O'Hare or, as someone mentioned, some homeless riders (as is common.) 8 cars/32 people is just 4 riders per car. More likely a couple cars empty, a couple with about 8 riders, 1-4 in some of the others. I used to regularly ride a couple of stops on this line at about 3:15 A.M. a few years ago. I'd see the same flight attendant, airport workers, maybe a bartender or two headed home, maybe early shift workers. But most of the traffic did, indeed, appear to be airport bound. This is roughly the time things started to pick up, actually. By 4 they were in full swing with many more riders. A 24 hour bus which serves as a feeder to the Blue Line also seems to have a major pickup in traffic around 3. It was a Monday, but, if anything, this seems ever so slightly early for the more significant passenger loads. 45 minutes later, I would have expected this number easily and maybe double.
 
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fairviewroad said:
chakk said:
I am somewhat surprised that there were as many as 32 people around at 3 AM to be injured.
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As a college student in Philadelphia, I had a job for about 18 months that required me to ride public transit to work at 4 AM. Despite living

a half-block from a subway stop, I had to use a "Night Owl" bus since the subways in Philly don't run 24/7 (except a few of the Green Line

trolleys).
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I did hear that Septa is looking to restore 24/7 service on at least the Broad Street Line.
 
afigg said:
The video "appears to show" the accident?? Sure looks like a video of the train running into the end of the tracks and up the escalator to me. They were lucky that the station was nearly empty and no one was killed.
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I think it's "appears to show" since it was not from an official source so there's no way to say for sure that it's genuine. You never know what people are capable of putting together these days with computer generated images. But yes, this one certainly has the appearance of authenticity.
 
From that same article:

Federal officials say the train operator admitted that she “dozed off" before the accident.

National Transportation Safety Board investigator Ted Turpin said the woman had been working as an operator for about two months and acknowledged she had previously fallen asleep on the job in February, when her train partially missed a station.
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"She did admit that she dozed off prior to entering the station," Turpin said of the operator during a briefing Wednesday. "She did not awake until the train hit."

He said the woman, who was cooperating with the investigation, often worked an erratic schedule, filling in for other CTA employees.

"Her hours would vary every day," he said.

Turpin said the NTSB is investigating the woman's training, scheduling, and disciplinary history.

Latherow said it is “very alarming” that the transit agency allowed someone who had fallen asleep at the helm before to operate another train.

“She’d only been working as an … operator for 60 days … and here she’s fallen asleep what comes out to once a month now,” Latherow said. “And this is very alarming, and you wonder who is calling the shots? Who is letting somebody like this continue to operate a train, which is deadly?”
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The question is, did CTA know about her falling asleep in the previous incident? If not, then how can one really expect CTA to know she might have a problem?

As for "erratic schedule," it's called the extra board, and it's something that virtually every operating employee in virtually every transportation company deals with at the start of their career, until they hold enough seniority to get regular work (and even then, some choose to stay on the extra board just because they prefer it for various reasons).
 
It would be helpful to be notified that something is possibly overlooked when stating: Is the Chicago Transit Authority's subway not equipped with Automatic Train Control? Or why was this subway train not stopped automatically? Why is there so much focus on the driver when it seems the safety system did not work properly, or was only partially in place?

Not being aware of how serious of a source this is, on the following website about Chicago's subway it is stated:

The ATC system is in continuous contact with each train, not just when a train passes a fixed wayside signal as with the ABS system. Therefore, speed commands are updated continuously and will alter as soon as conditions ahead change. The installation of the ATC system was 40% less than the estimate of what it would have coast to install an ABS systemwide.

The first installation of the ATC was on eight miles of the Lake Street Line from Harlem to the Chicago River in 1965. The Dan Ryan and Kennedy Lines had them when they opened in 1969-70 and starting in 1975, the rest of the system was converted line by line, covering the "dark" (unsignalized) trackage bit by bit.
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see: http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/signals/signals.html#ATC

So does that mean ATC does exist on the Chicago subway? And in case it did, why did it not work properly then? Or it didn't?

From the quote above, one might think, so maybe the Chicago subway's ATC just displays warnings to the driver, but doesn't automatically stop the train. The above source says there is an automatic "penalty stop" though if needed:

In ATC, wayside equipment detects the presence of trains or other speed-limiting factors and send electronic commands dictating the maximum speed a following train may operate through the rails. These signals are picked up by equipment on a train and compares it to the actual speedometer reading. If the actual speed exceeds the maximum allowed speed, visual and audio displays alert the driver to lower his speed. If the driver fails to stop or reduce his speed, a penalty full stop is imposed.
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Anybody able to provide some insight into this?
 
I can't speak to the specific details of the CTA 'L' control systems, but I do know that chicago-l.org is run by a CTA employee (on his own personal time) and the information on that site comes from people who have probably hundreds (if not a thousand or more) of years (combined) experience in rail operations, including many current and past CTA employees. So, it's safe to say that information on that site is pretty reliable.
 
According to Trains News Wire CTA has removed the wreck train from the O'Hare station and expects it to reopen on the weekend. Crews need to repair tracks, platforms, and staircases (nothing about any escalators). Also:

"The CTA announced earlier this week it was taking some new safety steps at the station. As a 'precautionary measure,' it is lowering the speed limit of trains entering the O’Hare station from 25 mph – the speed at which the train was traveling ­to 15 mph. In addition, trip switches that are supposed to stop a train from traveling above that speed will be moved farther back on the track so they engage earlier, the agency says."
 
WhoozOn1st said:
"The CTA announced earlier this week it was taking some new safety steps at the station. As a 'precautionary measure,' it is lowering the speed limit of trains entering the O’Hare station from 25 mph – the speed at which the train was traveling ­to 15 mph. In addition, trip switches that are supposed to stop a train from traveling above that speed will be moved farther back on the track so they engage earlier, the agency says."
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Interesting. I wonder how many tens of thousands of Blue Line trains have entered that station over the years? It seems as though only one of them decided to exit the station via the escalator. I wonder if the lowered speed limit is really necessary or is simply window dressing? Oh well, I don't suppose it will add that much time to the trip.
 
fairviewroad said:
WhoozOn1st said:
"The CTA announced earlier this week it was taking some new safety steps at the station. As a 'precautionary measure,' it is lowering the speed limit of trains entering the O’Hare station from 25 mph – the speed at which the train was traveling ­to 15 mph. In addition, trip switches that are supposed to stop a train from traveling above that speed will be moved farther back on the track so they engage earlier, the agency says."
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Interesting. I wonder how many tens of thousands of Blue Line trains have entered that station over the years? It seems as though only one of them decided to exit the station via the escalator. I wonder if the lowered speed limit is really necessary or is simply window dressing? Oh well, I don't suppose it will add that much time to the trip.
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Looking at the Blue line schedule there's about 130 trains a weekday arriving O'Hare. Allowing for weekends, holidays, eras of less service, say 105/day over 30 years.

So a rough guess would be 105x365x30 = more than a million.
 
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Thank you for this reply.

Trogdor said:
I can't speak to the specific details of the CTA 'L' control systems, but I do know that chicago-l.org is run by a CTA employee (on his own personal time) and the information on that site comes from people who have probably hundreds (if not a thousand or more) of years (combined) experience in rail operations, including many current and past CTA employees. So, it's safe to say that information on that site is pretty reliable.
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The insight that chicago-l.org seems to be a reliable source of information is very helpful.

At the same time, it might still seem so surprising to many that safety system is nearly not addressed at all.

The only thing that could be read about it is, similar to how it was already posted here:

"The Chicago Transit Authority says it's lowering the speed limit for trains entering the O'Hare International Airport station to 15 mph from 25 mph after a derailment earlier this week.

The CTA also said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that it would move trip switches that stop trains traveling above the speed limit. The agency said it would put the switches farther back so they work earlier."
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See: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140326/NEWS10/140329822/cta-taking-precautions-at-ohare-after-derailment#

For some, it might look like that the question remains how the derailment was able to happen in the first place, as a properly set-up and working safety system should have prevented it, no matter what happened to the train driver.
 

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