Incident at Hoboken Station

[greatcats]

The reports as of a short time ago were that the engineer is critically injured in the hospital, but is being cooperative. My former co-worker friend advised me that the conductor of the train is OK. ( Gov. Cuomo of New York kept repeating the common inaccuracy of referring to the engineer as the conductor. Sigh. )

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

Aerial view of the collapsed roof of Hoboken Terminal

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1776350622652602&set=p.1776350622652602&type=3&theater

JIS this link isn't working (at least not for me anyways).

 

[jis]

Aerial view of the collapsed roof of Hoboken Terminal

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1776350622652602&set=p.1776350622652602&type=3&theater

JIS this link isn't working (at least not for me anyways).

I am removing the post since there is no easy way to get it to work at this time.

 

[jis]

Is there anything that prevents PTC from being programmed to prevent trains from running into stations? At first glance it seems like kind of an obvious oversight from a threat analysis and event prevention perspective.

Technically anything is possible given enough moolah. As a matter of regulation it is not recommended in yard and terminal trackage due to very high rate of false positives in such situations causing too much interference in smooth operation apparently. But yeah, sure, if it were required one could figure out something that'd work. However, one has to beware that a train is allowed to operate even on main line at reduced speed with inoperative PTC, and speed limits in yard and terminal trackage is 20mph anyway.

Part of the problem in this case may be that the original cab signal enforced 20mph is not operational in Hoboken for some reason. But this is speculation. We should wait to learn what happened from the investigation.

Actually it is amazing how many false stops and other false enforcement that are happening under ACSES on the NEC. I hear of them from Engineer friends from time to time. There is much debugging that remains to be done even where it is supposed to work.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Kind thoughts to all those involved in this tragedy.

The New York Governor is on MSNBC talking about this and he said that only One person is dead and that PTC is being implemented and that " the Conductor"

Would have been helped by PTC.

 

[Ryan]

Aerial view of the collapsed roof of Hoboken Terminal

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1776350622652602&set=p.1776350622652602&type=3&theater

JIS this link isn't working (at least not for me anyways).

I am removing the post since there is no easy way to get it to work at this time.

For what it's worth, it worked initially. Must have been taken down?

 

[jis]

Info in this article, if true, confirms what I feared. While speed restrictions are displayed in the cab there is no penalty in Hoboken for not responding to the notification of restriction. Sigh.... Not really a PTC issue but a cab signal issue.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/system-for-stopping-trains-in-hoboken-antiquated-nj-transit-engineers-say-1.1668956

 

[norfolkwesternhenry]

it seems the train consisted of comet single level cars, probably pulled by an ALP-45DP. The engineer is alive, but hospitalized, but already working with investigators. Best wishes to survivors and their families.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/train-crashes-new-jersey-transit-hoboken-station-article-1.2811435

EDIT: though I was posting a new topic since I couldn't find this one.

 

[greatcats]

Henry- FYI: The train in the accident was a Pascack Valley Line train, which originated in Spring Valley, NY. That is a diesel only line, not electric, as are most of the former Erie Railroad lines.

 

[jis]

It seems this morning at about 8:45 AM ET, NJT train #1614 barreled into Hoboken, NJ, at "a high rate of speed". There is one recorded fatality and atleast 100 injured, it seems the train consisted of comet single level cars, probably pulled by an ALP-45DP. The engineer is alive, but hospitalized, but already working with investigators. Best wishes to survivors and their families.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/train-crashes-new-jersey-transit-hoboken-station-article-1.2811435

No it was not pulled by any locomotive. however it was pushed by a diesel locomotive, since it was running in push mode, as are most diesel trains arriving in Hoboken are. Not sure what the locomotive was, but possibly it was an MNRR locomotive since it was an MNRR West of Hudson train from Spring Valley to Hoboken, though equipment is freely mixed between NJT and MNRR.

Incidentally we have been discussing this now for almost 9 hours on this thread.

 

[greatcats]

As I recall from working there, the equipment with Metro North markings is interchangeable and can be found running on other NJ Transit lines. Yes, the train was being pushed.

 

[jis]

As I recall from working there, the equipment with Metro North markings is interchangeable and can be found running on other NJ Transit lines. Yes, the train was being pushed.

Indeed! As is obvious, the cab car was an NJT livery Comet V Cab Car that found itself mostly in the station concourse.

 

[Rover]

Excuse my ignorance on this, but do the black boxes on these trains have any video of the conductor operating the train just before impact. And as a side query, do any rail commuter lines operating in the US, have video monitoring of the conductor?

 

[greatcats]

Excuse me, Rover, I don't mean to be rude, but please get your terms accurate. You are not talking about the conductor, but the engineer. You are in good company, however, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had it wrong at the press conference in Hoboken with NJ Gov. Christie. The conductor is in charge of the train, but does not operate it. (This from a former NJ Transit crew dispatcher. )

 

[brianpmcdonnell17]

Excuse me, Rover, I don't mean to be rude, but please get your terms accurate. You are not talking about the conductor, but the engineer. You are in good company, however, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had it wrong at the press conference in Hoboken with NJ Gov. Christie. The conductor is in charge of the train, but does not operate it. (This from a former NJ Transit crew dispatcher. )

I think I even found an article that refers to both the engineer and conductor as the conductor. One paragraph it says that he is out of the hospital and then a few paragraphs later he is in serious condition at the hospital.

 

[jis]

The press gets it wrong all the time. That is one reason we try to engage folks from the press and try to get them to vet these things through one of us. but often their deadlines are so short that even if they want to, they are unable to since the ranks of the reporters have been reduced to almost nothing and they are given very little time to throw out articles. Whenever we manage to talk to them they usually do not put such bad terminology in articles. But that,as I said, may or may not happen.

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

A couple of items to add that were on the radio news or in the paper this morning (please forgive me if someone posted some of this already and I missed it):

There are two black boxes: they recovered the one from the end car, but can't get to the one in the front yet because of debris, asbestos, etc., making it too dangerous for them to go in. The NTSB is asking the manufacturer of the black boxes to help them decode the one they were able to get, because they are having trouble getting the information from it.

NJ Transit was given a pass on implementing PTC before the 2018 deadline if it would install another safety feature (someone else here will know the correct term and may have the facts down better than the newspaper article did) that would stop a train going into that station. NJT is refusing to say whether it had installed that feature, using as its reasoning for not doing so the current investigation going on.

 

[jis]

NJTransit was a pioneer in trying to get SES, an ACSES compliant system (the PTC system being used across the baord by NEC connected commuter agencies in the northeast) installed on its network since Shirley DeLibero's time. But since then repeatedly Trenton has refused to fund that effort, and here we are where we are. Now the monkeys are all sitting around pointing at each other and refusing to speak about it. Incidentally both Republicans and Democrats are con-conspirators in this implicit negligence in Trenton.

it is interesting that they finally agreed on a TTF funding package (which is where typically funding would be found for such infrastructure capital work) within a few days of this mishap Politicians will be politicians.

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

That's a good point about the TTF, jis. The two front-page articles this morning in the Trenton Times, side by side, were about the train accident and about the TTF, but I missed the irony that you picked up on.

 

[jis]

Here is an opinion piece by Paul Mulshine, about Christie's handling of the TTF situation:

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/09/a_preventable_train_crash_highlights_christies_fai.html

 

[Carolina Special]

Well at least the transportation funding is happening. Too bad it took casualties to get the parties to compromise.

 

[Palmetto]

I hope I don't come across as a prophet of doom, but if one of the Hudson River tunnels has to close, we're going to see a lot of fur flying. It often happens that a catastrophe is the cause of improving things. Too bad.

 

[Rover]

Excuse me, Rover, I don't mean to be rude, but please get your terms accurate. You are not talking about the conductor, but the engineer. You are in good company, however, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had it wrong at the press conference in Hoboken with NJ Gov. Christie. The conductor is in charge of the train, but does not operate it. (This from a former NJ Transit crew dispatcher. )

You are correct greatcats. No rudeness taken, bty. Thank you for pointing that out!

I admit I have been lazy in noting what the titles referred to. I am thankful that I have finally got this straight in my head. That said, any news article I read or watch, I will be wary of the terms used to describe the employees of any train...

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Excuse me, Rover, I don't mean to be rude, but please get your terms accurate. You are not talking about the conductor, but the engineer. You are in good company, however, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had it wrong at the press conference in Hoboken with NJ Gov. Christie. The conductor is in charge of the train, but does not operate it. (This from a former NJ Transit crew dispatcher. )

You are correct greatcats. No rudeness taken, bty. Thank you for pointing that out! I admit I have been lazy in noting what the titles referred to. I am thankful that I have finally got this straight in my head. That said, any news article I read or watch, I will be wary of the terms used to describe the employees of any train...

It's a curious concept to grasp anyhow. The conductor is responsible for train's movements but the engineer is the one who actually operates it. If the conductor is the one in charge why is he or she promoted into the position of engineer? Never really made much sense to me but I presume that's because my career comes from a different era and background.

 

[greatcats]

I'm glad I did not step on anyone's toes. Yes, the concept of the chain of command is a bit odd. The promotion to engineer, however, makes more sense in that the engineer has the higher rate of pay, or at least used to be when I Worked at NJT.

Meanwhile, I feel terrible for that engineer. While I did not know him, he seems like a good and conscientious man. I don't want to speculate too much here, but I know the arrangement of those assignments. He lives about 50 miles from Spring Valley, NY and those jobs encompass 12 to 14 hours or more. Long, long day, even with the at least 4 hour swing( break ) in assignments of this nature.