# Blue Line CTA derails at O'Hare



## AmtrakBlue (Mar 24, 2014)

http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-79707827/


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## Ryan (Mar 24, 2014)

More like "CTA train plows over bumper post, attempts to climb escalator":







Maybe the train was as sick of winter as I am and was looking to catch a flight to somewhere warmer.

All joking aside, best wishes for a speedy recovery to those hurt and that the CTA can track down how this happened so that it doesn't happen again.


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## MikefromCrete (Mar 24, 2014)

Good thing this happened at 3 a.m. instead of 3 p.m.


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## NorthShore (Mar 24, 2014)

The sign is hilarious.


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## NorthShore (Mar 24, 2014)

Had this occurred at any other time of day, it would have been disasterous, just from a standpoint of hitting many people on the platform and stairs.


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## CHamilton (Mar 24, 2014)

Dozens injured in train derailment at O'Hare airport


> At least 32 people were injured, none seriously, when an eight-car train crashed through a barrier at the end of the platform and jumped up an escalator at O'Hare International Airport on Monday, according to Chicago's Transit Authority.
> 
> Six people were listed in fair condition and 26 in good condition at three area hospitals, according to fire officials. None of the injuries are believed to be life-threatening.
> 
> ...


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## cirdan (Mar 24, 2014)

I've flown into this airport many times and taken the Blue Line many times. How very lucky that nobody was killed.


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## NorthShore (Mar 24, 2014)

It almost seems as if the severity of this accident is being downplayed locally since there were no serious injuries. The biggest concern is almost portrayed as, "So, how long will it take to get trains up and running again?"


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## Anderson (Mar 24, 2014)

"No, no, no! I told you they come into the _train station_, not the _airport_!"

"But this _is_ the train station! _In_ the airport!"

(Ok, Silver Streak jokes aside, a speedy recovery to those hurt and many thanks this wasn't more serious)


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## WinNix (Mar 24, 2014)

I am glad there were no fatalities! In light of that, I think a light hearted movie reference is called for...

"That escalated quickly!" - Ron Burgundy


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## jamesontheroad (Mar 24, 2014)

The station at O'Hare is underground (and under a parking ramp?) so this could be a difficult one to get a crane into. Any thoughts?


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## MetraUPWest (Mar 24, 2014)

I firmly believe that had it not been 3am this accident wouldn't have happened. That train had to be absolutely flying to get that far past the post. I hope it doesn't turn out that the operator fell asleep, but I don't really see any other way.

It's definitely not going to be an easy cleanup, that's for sure!


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## SarahZ (Mar 24, 2014)

NorthShore said:


> Had this occurred at any other time of day, it would have been disasterous, just from a standpoint of hitting many people on the platform and stairs.


Agreed. I'm glad no one was seriously injured.


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## NorthShore (Mar 24, 2014)

Couldn't an operator have fallen asleep any other time of day, also?

7 A.M. at the end of a long all night shift or 7 P.M. on a day with short sleep could be just as dangerous.


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## fairviewroad (Mar 24, 2014)

A sleeping operator certainly seems to be a logical guess, but are there really no safeguards for that? A dead man's switch, for instance? The train

would have had quite a lot of speed to make it that far "up" so if the operator simply fell asleep approaching the station, you'd think the train would have

simply stopped short of the platform. Could the operator have slumped onto the throttle? (Obviously I'm not familiar with the controls of a CTA train)


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## WinNix (Mar 24, 2014)

fairviewroad said:


> A sleeping operator certainly seems to be a logical guess, but are there really no safeguards for that? A dead man's switch, for instance?


Anytime something like this happens, I marvel at both the remarkable technological progress we've made as a society, and the glaring lack of applications of it. There is no greater impetus of change than a tragedy that could have been avoided.


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## NorthShore (Mar 24, 2014)

Indeed, the history of accidents and what we've learned from them is fascinating.


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## NorthShore (Mar 24, 2014)

News reports are now indicating that the operator, indeed, has admitted to nodding off.

One would think that cab signal controls coupled with track trips should have seriously slowed the train. What fascinates me is the way in which the train jumped the track rather than tearing through the bumper. It almost seems similar to the tragic late 70s Loop accident where is wasn't the initial train crash, but the repeated application of power that caused the forces to recoil and knock the train off its tracks. Could this train have been initially stopped by the bumper, lurched briefly back and the first car gotten forced airborne by the continued power stream from rear cars attempting to still progress?

As to a crane, talk is that the car will be cut up and removed in pieces. Perhaps a track crane could assist?


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## MetraUPWest (Mar 24, 2014)

I'm 90% sure that the CTA cars do have a sort of dead man's switch. If I recall correctly, it detects if you lift your hand off of the power handle, and will eventually put the train into a penalty.

I agree that this type of accident can happen no matter what time of day, but with 7 years experience in the railroad industry I can tell you that 2-6am are far and away the most dangerous times of day. Even with adequate sleep it can be VERY hard to stay awake during that time frame.

Cab signals will enforce a certain maximum speed, but they can not automatically stop a train. I'm not sure how CTA cab signals are set up, but on Metra the most restrictive cab signal will still allow you to go 20mph no matter what. Only PTC can stop a train, and I have yet to see a PTC system that works 100% as it is intended to.


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## NorthShore (Mar 25, 2014)

And, admittedly, an operator can put the train into bypass, also, to get around the cab signals and related penalties. I had assumed, however (based upon hearing the warning signals many times in terminal areas and short blocks such as exist downtown), perhaps errantly, that much more restrictive speed restrictions were available in such situations.

When did they move away from dead man throttles? The old 6000 series cars had them, no?

I was starting to wonder about the possibility of a suicide attempt on the part of the train operator.

It was interesting that the union rep essentially admitted that safety equipment can not be trusted to be 100% protective or fail safe and safe operation essentially is ultimately dependent upon the operator.


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## WhoozOn1st (Mar 25, 2014)

NorthShore said:


> As to a crane, talk is that the car will be cut up and removed in pieces. Perhaps a track crane could assist?


From Trains News Wire:

"The train was wedged near the top of escalator, and first responders did not know if there was anyone underneath the train. They brought in specialized units to check under it, but no one was found. CTA spokesman Brian Steele said workers might have to cut up the car and remove it piece by piece, which could take 12 to 24 hours. Then the damage will have to be assessed and repairs made before trains can use the station, he said."

I'll make a wild guess that "damage will have to be assessed and repairs made before trains can use the station" means damage and repairs to the _station._ Somehow I just don't see them trying to weld the dismembered car back together and roll it out of there. 

Also an access note:

"Blue Line service to O’Hare is stopped at the Rosemont station. Steele says the agency is using articulated buses between Rosemont and O’Hare that are operating on a load-and-go basis instead of on a schedule."


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## cirdan (Mar 25, 2014)

fairviewroad said:


> A sleeping operator certainly seems to be a logical guess, but are there really no safeguards for that? A dead man's switch, for instance? The train
> 
> would have had quite a lot of speed to make it that far "up" so if the operator simply fell asleep approaching the station, you'd think the train would have
> 
> simply stopped short of the platform. Could the operator have slumped onto the throttle? (Obviously I'm not familiar with the controls of a CTA train)


Wasn't there recently also an incident in which a Blue Line train ran away from the car barn without anybody on board?

This would indeed suggest that the safeguard / deadman's switch system is not foolproof.


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## NorthShore (Mar 25, 2014)

One of my favorite little tidbits about this incident is the notice which CTA put up on their website shortly after the incident:

Length:*Monday, March 24, 2014* - 5:40 AM
to *TBD*

Impact Level:Elevator Status
Full Description:
The elevator at O'Hare (Blue Line) is temporarily out-of-service.


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## SarahZ (Mar 25, 2014)

cirdan said:


> fairviewroad said:
> 
> 
> > A sleeping operator certainly seems to be a logical guess, but are there really no safeguards for that? A dead man's switch, for instance? The train
> ...


Yes.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-10-03/news/ct-met-blue-line-investigation-1003-20131003_1_cta-rail-employees-in-service-train-harlem-station


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## chakk (Mar 25, 2014)

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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## SarahZ (Mar 25, 2014)

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?


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.


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## fairviewroad (Mar 25, 2014)

chakk said:


> I am somewhat surprised that there were as many as 32 people around at 3 AM to be injured.


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).


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## tp49 (Mar 25, 2014)

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.


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## Ryan (Mar 25, 2014)

I don't believe that there are any HOS requirements for mass transit operators.


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## MetraUPWest (Mar 25, 2014)

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.


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## NorthShore (Mar 25, 2014)

I thought I had heard an initial report that the operator had 17 hours off between this shift and the last.


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## NorthShore (Mar 25, 2014)

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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## Acela150 (Mar 26, 2014)

fairviewroad said:


> chakk said:
> 
> 
> > I am somewhat surprised that there were as many as 32 people around at 3 AM to be injured.
> ...


I did hear that Septa is looking to restore 24/7 service on at least the Broad Street Line.


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## afigg (Mar 26, 2014)

Chicago Sun-Times article with a video of the Blue Line accident: Surveillance video appears to show Blue Line O’Hare derailment.

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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## fairviewroad (Mar 26, 2014)

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.


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.


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## SarahZ (Mar 26, 2014)

afigg said:


> Chicago Sun-Times article with a video of the Blue Line accident: Surveillance video appears to show Blue Line O’Hare derailment.


Can you imagine being that guy in the video? He'd just come up the escalator when this happened. My god. I'd have played the Lotto that night. Talk about luck.


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## AmtrakBlue (Mar 26, 2014)

Another rogue train attacking people.


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## SarahZ (Mar 26, 2014)

Some passengers are filing lawsuits for their injuries:

http://www.wbez.org/news/cta-facing-lawsuits-over-blue-line-crash-109923


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## SarahZ (Mar 26, 2014)

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.





> "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.
> 
> ...


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## Trogdor (Mar 26, 2014)

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).


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## beautifulplanet (Mar 27, 2014)

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.


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.


Anybody able to provide some insight into this?


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## Trogdor (Mar 27, 2014)

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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## WhoozOn1st (Mar 28, 2014)

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."


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## Acela150 (Mar 28, 2014)

Video put on youtube a few days ago. It's rather funny.


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## fairviewroad (Mar 29, 2014)

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."


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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## NW cannonball (Mar 29, 2014)

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."
> ...


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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## beautifulplanet (Apr 3, 2014)

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.


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."


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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