Bronx crash: Union head says Metro-North knew dangers
Source: The Journal News
Thomas C Zambito
The head of Metro-North’s biggest union says that, in the years before four passengers were killed when a sleeping engineer derailed a speeding train in the Bronx in 2013, his members questioned whether the railroad’s backup safety system could prevent such a crash.
Anthony Bottalico, the general chairman of the Association of Commuter Rail Employees, says the railroad failed to address his union’s concern that the approach to the Spuyten Duyvil curve and others needed a system that automatically puts the brakes on a speeding train when an engineer is unresponsive.
“That had been raised for many, many years,” Bottalico told The Journal News. “Most accidents are human error.”
In a meeting days after the crash, Bottalico and union members raised similar concerns with Metro-North officials, Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Aaron Donovan confirmed Friday after The Journal News asked about the sitdown. But Donovan could not say whether the union members used the meeting to remind the railroad officials that they'd been telling them about their concerns for several years or whether they were citing its as a change that needed to be made.
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(Photo: File photo by Timothy Clary/AFP/Getty Images)
Read more: http://www.lohud.com/story/news/investigations/2015/11/29/bronx-derailment-dangers/76259224/
