Senior NJ Transit leaders skip hearing on fatal train crash
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Federal railroad regulators said a meeting Friday with New Jersey Transit's top officials would have been rescheduled if the agency had revealed it was being held at the same time as a legislative hearing on last month's fatal train crash.
Democratic Assemblyman John McKeon, skeptical of the short notice, said the lack of participation from NJ Transit's top management was "disrespectful" to the joint legislative committee looking into the agency's safety and financial woes.
"We are not to be trifled with," McKeon told the one NJ Transit witness who did show up: board Chairman Richard Hammer.
NJ Transit did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
An NJ Transit train crashed Sept. 29 at Hoboken Terminal, killing one woman and injuring more than 100 other people. An Associated Press analysis showed NJ Transit has had more accidents than any other commuter railroad in the country in the past five years.
Hammer blamed the agency's accounting methods for the higher accident rates and statistics that show trains need repairs more frequently than other railroads. He said NJ Transit counts every incident and accident involving its trains and tracks, not just those meeting federal reporting criteria.
Hammer, who's also the state transportation commissioner, says he is looking into whether the agency double-counts trains affected by mechanical issues. Hammer said he's been told the agency sometimes counts the broken-down train, along with trains that follow in the schedule.
A spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration said NJ Transit officials had never disclosed they had two meetings scheduled for one day and regulators weren't aware of the conflict until reading about it in news reports.
"FRA would have gladly rescheduled our meeting this morning to allow New Jersey Transit to participate in today's hearing," spokesman Matthew Lehner said.
McKeon said he received a text message Thursday night reporting that officials couldn't attend the hearing.
Hammer said NJ Transit has spent $100 million on installing modern train control technology and the agency would meet a December 2018 installation deadline imposed by Congress. Testing will begin next year on a 6-mile stretch of the Morris and Essex Line.
He said NJ Transit will look into whether the technology, known as positive-train control, should be installed at Hoboken Terminal. Federal regulators had given the agency an exception for the station, as long as it uses on-board computers tied to the PTC system to regulate train speeds.
After the crash, NJ Transit lowered the speed limit to 5 mph and ordered conductors to stand in the front of the train and act as a second set of eyes for engineers when entering the station. The agency said it's enforcing the speed limit with radar and downloads from on-board data systems. Still, there's no mechanism in place to alert the engineer that the train is going too fast until it surpasses 20 mph.
The Federal Railroad Administration didn't immediately respond to questions about how NJ Transit's record-keeping may have affected federal safety statistics. NJ Transit declined to answer questions about its safety record while the AP was working on the analysis, citing the ongoing Hoboken investigation.
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Associated Press writer Michael Catalini contributed to this report.