(The following story by Alfonso A. Castillo appeared on the Newsday website on September 28, 2009.)
NEW YORK — The Long Island Rail Road has increased its supervision of train crews on its Montauk branch nearly two months after a near head-on collision involving two trains near Bridgehampton.
On Aug. 1, a westbound train carrying no passengers failed to pull off the main track into a side rail to allow an eastbound train carrying 20 passengers to pass.
According to an LIRR source who wished to remain anonymous, the conductor on one of the trains failed to tell the engineer of that same train that the designated location for the trains to pass each other had been changed.
The engineers of the two trains saw each other’s headlights as they approached a curve and applied their brakes. The trains stopped within 700 feet of each other, the source said.
“The engineers of both trains identified the error and each safely stopped their trains,” LIRR spokesman Joe Calderone said. “No injuries occurred.”
The LIRR immediately initiated an investigation and suspended without pay six employees found to have been responsible although the incident did not involve the breach of any of its rules, officials said.
The LIRR has also implemented new protocols “designed to improve communications among employees” and have increased oversight of train crews working in the area near the incident.
LIRR Commuter Council vice chairman Gerard Bringmann, who commutes westbound from Patchogue on the same line, called the situation “very scary.”
“Thank God that the engineers were paying attention to what was going on and took some evasive action” said Bringmann, who has raised issues for years over problems in service on the LIRR’s Main Line in Eastern Suffolk, where there is just a single, un-electrified track and an antiquated signal system in which “a guy literally comes down off a tower and gives the train orders at the end of a stick on a piece of paper.”
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“With the exception of the weekend warrior traffic they don’t get a lot of traffic out there, so I don’t know if they pay as much attention to the track conditions and the signal conditions out there,” Bringmann said.