(The following story by Rosalind Rossi appeared on the Chicago Sun-Times website on December 4.)
CHICAGO — An Amtrak engineer who plowed into the rear of a freight train had been fully certified for only about three months when he sped up — despite a signal that ordered him to be especially cautious — and headed into a “canyon” of moving boxcars, investigators said Monday.
A videotape on YouTube and various news Web sites showed the tunnel of moving freight trains that may have obstructed the engineer’s view as he rounded a curve at 25 mph over the maximum speed indicated, driving the Pere Marquette toward Chicago’s Union Station.
“He’s going into a box canyon,” said Robert Sumwalt, National Transportation Safety Board vice chairman, part of the NTSB team probing Friday’s crash on the South Side that sent 71 people to local hospitals.
“He’s just going through this tunnel, with one train on one side and one train on another,” Sumwalt told the Chicago Sun-Times. “He’s in a curve and he can’t see until he’s fairly close to running into the rear of the standing train.”
As they piece together the tapestry of facts surrounding Friday’s accident, Sumwalt said, NTSB investigators so far have found evidence that:
— The engineer was certified by Amtrak in September of this year, and had operated the Grand Rapids, Mich., to Chicago stretch about three times previously as a certified engineer, and about 30 other times during “on the job training, under the supervision of another qualified engineer.”
— A two-man relief team joined the Pere Marquette in Hammond, Ind., and were supposed to replace the engineer in Chicago. Investigators want to know how much the engineer worked in the last 72 hours and whether “fatigue” could have played a role in Friday’s crash.
— On the day of the accident, the engineer drove through stretches of track owned by four different railroads, each with their own possible interpretation of various traffic signals. Norfolk Southern owned the accident stretch.
The engineer has acknowledged seeing a “red over yellow” signal just before a crossover in the Englewood neighborhood, where he was switched to a track that ultimately contained the standing Norfolk Southern freight train he rammed near 52nd and Shields, Sumwalt said.
The engineer’s Amtrak certification meant he should have known that “red over yellow” meant his speed was “restricted” to no more than 15 mph, an amount specified in Amtrak booklets; that he should have been prepared to stop at any time; and that he should have been ready to stop in half the distance he could see, Sumwalt said.
The engineer slowed appropriately to 8 or 9 mph at the Englewood crossover, but then accelerated beyond the “restricted speed,” going some 40 mph as he headed into a curve and a “canyon” of boxcars that may have blocked his view of the standing Norfolk Southern train ahead, Sumwalt said.
Unlike car traffic signals, which have limited nationwide meanings, “there are dozens and dozens of signal combinations,” which can hold different meanings under tracks owned by different railroads, Sumwalt said.
“I don’t know if [the engineer] knew what speed the restricting signal called for. Certainly we will focus on that and try to learn more about it,” Sumwalt said. “Certainly confusion is something we will look at, along with everything else….
“We will be looking at what the engineer was doing and what he was thinking and … [we’ll] try to get an idea of his mental state at the time he went through the signal,” Sumwalt said.
In addition, Sumwalt said, investigators will use computer simulation to determine whether the engineer, if following the appropriate speed restrictions, would have been able to stop in time to avoid hitting the freight train. They may even try to recreate the actual conditions.
“With a train on his left, and a train on his right, how far could he have seen? We may go back and recreate that in reality versus a computer simulation,” Sumwalt said.
Attorney Thomas Prindable, who filed the first Chicago lawsuit Monday involving the accident, said attorneys normally never get to such a video so early in an NTSB investigation. The tape, pulled from police surveillance cameras, indicates the engineer was “speeding” into an area with “a lot of train activity,” he said.
“He’s surrounded by two walls of trains,” said Prindable, managing partner with the high-powered Clifford Law Offices. “One would think that one would naturally slow down.”
Prindable’s suit seeks damages on behalf of six Amtrak passengers — a Michigan grandfather, his wife, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren.