NTSB Concludes Broken Rail Led to Last May's Metro-North Derailment, Collision

The National Transportation Safety Board has reaffirmed that an undetected broken pair of compromise joint bars was the primary cause of the derailment and subsequent collision of two Metro-North passenger trains in May 2013.

Fairfield emergency personnel responded to the accident scene, in which at least 65 people were injured — 53 sustained minor injuries and 12 sustained serious injuries, according to a press release.

Read the NTSB’s full probable cause finding below:

The NTSB determined that the probable cause of the derailment was an undetected broken pair of compromise joint bars on the north rail of track 4 on the Metro-North Railroad New Haven subdivision at milepost 53.25 resulting from: (1) the lack of a comprehensive track maintenance program that prioritized the inspection findings to schedule proper corrective maintenance; (2) the regulatory exemption for high-density commuter railroads from the requirement to traverse the tracks they inspect; and (3) Metro-North’s decisions to defer scheduled track maintenance.

The NTSB launched an 11-month investigation into five Metro-North accidents and it identified several recurring safety issues, including inadequate and ineffective track inspection and maintenance, extensive deferred maintenance issues, inadequate safety oversight, and deficiencies in passenger car crashworthiness, roadway worker protection procedures and organizational safety culture.

Combined the five accidents resulted in six fatalities and 126 injuries. During the investigations, the NTSB found several safety management problems that were common to all of the accidents.

“Seeing this pattern of safety issues in a single railroad is troubling,” NTSB Acting Chairman Christopher A. Hart said in a press release. “The NTSB has made numerous recommendations to the railroad and the regulator that could have prevented or mitigated these accidents. But recommendations can only make a difference if the recipients of our recommendations act on them.”

Read the NTSB’s full report here.

Image via National Transportation Safety Board

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