Metra stepping up track inspections after derailments

Metra is beefing up track inspections after discovering an inspector overlooked a misalignment that caused a pair of derailments earlier this month, officials said Friday.

No one was injured and the cars stayed upright in the Oct. 2 derailments, which occurred within 90 minutes of each other. Both trains on the South Branch of the Metra Electric District were moving slowly near a station on different tracks when they derailed.

An inspector should have caught the track misalignment that caused the derailments at a sharp curve on the line, Bill Tupper, Metra's director of operations, said in a published report Friday.

Metra officials are considering disciplinary action against the inspector, according to Metra spokeswoman Judy Pardonnet.

The new inspection procedures will start next month and use high-tech equipment to check alignment and detect defects, Tupper said.

The FBI had looked into the derailments and determined there was no connection to suspected sabotage along the same line the week before. Metra had discovered more than two dozen spikes -- used to hold down metal plates that bind the rails to wooden ties -- had been removed from tracks along a different stretch of the same line.

The federal investigation of the alleged sabotage is ongoing.