(The following story by Joe Malinconico appeared on the Star-Ledger website on April 12.)
NEWARK, N.J. — A union leader yesterday criticized NJ Transit’s response to the recent flurry of stop signal violations, saying the agency was not doing enough to retrain its engineers.
After six of its trains went through stop signals within five months, NJ Transit began what it called an “aggressive plan” to retrain all 419 engineers over the next 30 days by sending supervisors to ride at the controls with them.
“This is absolutely not aggressive training,” said Robert Vallochi, general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, making his first public comments on NJ Transit’s handling of the stop signal violations. “What they’re doing is just a stop- gap measure. It’s not going to stop another stop signal violation from happening.”
NJ Transit defended its training plan yesterday, saying 143 engineers already had gone through supervised rides and that workers had received study guides emphasizing rail safety.
“We’ve reached out to the unions and we welcome their suggestions and feedback,” NJ Transit spokeswoman Penny Bassett Hackett said.
The six engineers who drove trains through stop signals between November and March were suspended without pay for 30 days and have gone through extra training before they were allowed back to work, officials said. The incidents occurred at New York Penn Station and Secaucus Junction.
Vallochi said NJ Transit has been relying on engineers with too little experience — three or four years in some cases — to provide training to their co-workers. He ridiculed the safety guides.
“That’s the training — they tell us, ‘Be careful,'” Vallochi said.