CHICAGO — A decades-old switching point just north of Union Station was removed in recent days to prevent more Metra and Amtrak train derailments, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
“We’ve had three derailments, and they’ve all happened in basically the same area,” said Metra Deputy Executive Director Rick Tidwell.
After the most recent incident, which occurred last Thursday and involved a Seattle-bound Amtrak train, the switching area was replaced with track that “goes in a straight line” without a “transition point,” said Vaughn Stoner, Metra’s chief operations officer.
The change is “an engineering solution that’s been put in place to take away the opportunity for this to ever happen again,” Tidwell said, adding it shouldn’t noticeably affect service. “Amtrak decided and we agreed, take it out, let’s operate without it.”
Kathleen Cantillon, an Amtrak spokeswoman, said of the work: “It was basically planned all along; we just accelerated the plan.”
The switch was located under an overhang hundreds of feet north of the “bumping post” at Union Station, which is owned by Amtrak and used by the passenger railroad and Metra, the commuter rail agency.
The switch layout, the curve it was on and a worn wheel flange on the Amtrak train contributed to Thursday’s derailment, which resulted in no injuries but snarled rail traffic for hours, according to local and federal officials.
“When the right conditions exist, you put an awful lot of pressure on that [eastern] rail,” said Tidwell. Although the switch and train wheel were factors in the derailment, “neither of the conditions were noncompliant with our regulations,” said Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Warren Flatau. As a result, Amtrak will not face penalties, he said.
The switch removal was accelerated under a five-year, $80 million improvement project under way on the north end of Union Station, said Metra spokeswoman Susana Leyva. That effort involves the reconstruction of switches and crossovers, plus the installation of new switch heaters, ties and rail. Much of that work is being done during off-peak hours and the warmer months, officials said.
Metra runs 126 trains each weekday on the Milwaukee District North and West lines, and North Central Service Line, through that area.
Amtrak operates its Seattle- and Milwaukee-bound trains from the north end.
Of the three derailments, two involved Metra and one Amtrak. They all occurred this year.