(The following story by Joe Malinconico appeared on the Star-Ledger website on July 30. Brother Bob Vallochi is General Chairman of the BLET’s NJ Transit General Committee of Adjustment.)
NEWARK, N.J. — Alarmed after crews detected an overheated wheel on a train earlier this month, NJ Transit has decided to replace equipment on 300 of its Comet passenger cars by the end of the year.
Officials believe the flaw that caused the excessive temperature on a wheel this month might be linked to the problem that caused a wheel to overheat and fall off a Main Line train in mid-June just after it dropped off its last load of passengers.
The June incident prompted NJ Transit to start checking the temperature of the wheels with heat sensors at rail yards in between trips — a procedure that detected the second overheated wheel a couple of weeks ago.
“I’m not crazy about the fact that they had these problems, but they’re doing the responsible thing to ensure the safety out here,” said Robert Vallochi, General Chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. “They’re doing everything they need to do.”
Vallochi praised the systematic use of the temperature sensors at the rail yards.
“That was a big wake-up call,” he said of the wheel that came off in June. “With just visual inspections, you would never find these problems.”
NJ Transit officials said they would continue using the temperature sensors to check wheels in the rail yards until they can complete installation of “wayside” heat detectors, also known as “hot box detectors,” on the tracks. The benefit of the hot box detectors is that they would find a wheel that has begun overheating during a trip, instead of only at the end of a run.
“The right solution to detecting wheel issues is to have in place a state of the art wayside system, which we’re leading the design of with GE (General Electric),” NJ Transit spokeswoman Lynn Bowersox said. “Meanwhile, employing conventional detectors and conducting regular manual tests demonstrate that we’re using every tool available to provide reliable and safe equipment.”
Train wheels can overheat and break from their axles if the seal on their bearings breaks, allowing lubricant to leak out. On the two trains that recently overheated, transit officials believe the journal box — or metal housing for the bearings — might have been loose and broke through the seal on the bearings’ lubrication.
Bowersox said the agency would replace 2,200 journal boxes on 300 Comet cars at a cost of $600,000. The boxes would have been changed within 18 months anyway, she said, as part of the regular wheel maintenance program.
Last year, NJ Transit took similar action — systematically replacing parts on its Arrow rail cars — after inspectors decided that a flaw in their electrical system caused a wheel to overheat and fall off, resulting in the derailment of a train carrying about 1,200 people.