Feds fault CTA in derailment
WASHINGTON -- A seriously flawed track inspection and maintenance program likely played a major role in last year's Chicago el train derailment that sent more than 150 people to the hospital, federal regulators said Tuesday in a scathing report.
The National Transportation Safety Board also determined that insufficient time allowed for inspections and limited training of inspectors contributed to unsafe conditions on the Chicago Transit Authority's Blue Line.
"It seems like a lot of people were looking the other way or not doing their jobs very well," NTSB board member Steven Chealander said.
The CTA said in a statement Tuesday evening that it had already implemented many of the safety recommendations made in the NTSB report, including the incorporation of state-of-the-art technology into the track inspection process and the completion of major infrastructure repairs across the city's subway network.
"We are confident that the practices we have put into place address those issues raised by the NTSB investigation into last year's derailment," the statement said. "The CTA is committed to providing the safest transit system possible for its customers and employees."
About 1,000 passengers were aboard the eight-car train when it derailed downtown during the early evening rush on July 16, 2006, causing a smoky fire. Most of the 150 people who went to hospitals were treated for smoke inhalation and released. Six people were seriously injured.
The accident caused more than $1 million in damage.
Inspection records were particularly troubling, according to the NTSB report. During a three-month period last year more than 80 percent of inspector records covering the area of the accident were missing, as were hundreds of records for the entire Blue Line, according to investigators.
The report cited the effects of corrosion and wear on the rails and rail fasteners and found poor drainage in the derailment area. CTA inspectors failed to report defective track conditions before the accident, even though the problems were obvious, the report found.
The CTA's inspector training and qualifications did not meet those of other major transit systems across the United States, including Metra, Amtrak and the Bay Area Rapid Transit, the NTSB said.
The CTA's one-day classroom training for inspectors didn't even cover tunnel conditions, investigators found.
One NTSB staffer who accompanied a track inspector on what was described as a typical day said the territory for the twice-weekly inspection was 6.22 miles, but the inspector did not get to the last 1½ miles.
The failures of other agencies also contributed to the accident, federal officials said. The Regional Transportation Authority, which oversees the CTA, failed to require the CTA to correct unsafe track conditions and the Federal Transit Administration did not effectively oversee the RTA, the NTSB said. The NTSB issued several safety-related recommendations, starting with a call for the FTA to ensure that state safety oversight agencies ensure that rail agencies promptly correct all deficiencies.