Electrified rail pierced New York train in crash, official says

Electrified rail pierced New York train in crash, official says Thu, Feb 05 10:53 AM EST image 2 of 17 By Sebastien Malo VALHALLA, N.Y. (Reuters) - Hundreds of feet of electrified rail skewered the first two carriages of a New York commuter train in a collision with a car at a railroad crossing, a federal investigator said on Wednesday, describing the area's worst rail crash in decades. Investigators were focused on why the car was stopped at the crossing near the suburb of White Plains north of New York City before the Metro-North train crashed into it during Tuesday evening's rush hour, pushing the vehicle about 1,000 feet down the line. The rail broke into long pieces, penetrating the first train carriage as a fire broke out, apparently fueled by gasoline in the vehicle's fuel tank, gutted the rail car's interior, he said. At least one section of the electrified, or "third," rail also entered the second carriage near its ceiling. "This third rail is just basically piling up inside that first train car," Robert Sumwalt, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said at a news conference ahead of a week of gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses. Sumwalt said the NTSB expected to release data from the recorder on the train on Thursday. Five train passengers and the woman who was driving the Mercedes sport utility vehicle that was stuck on the tracks were killed. Investigators said they do not yet have an explanation for how the vehicle, which officials had earlier mistakenly identified as a Jeep, became stuck on the tracks. Metro-North, run by the state-controlled Metropolitan Transportation Authority, had four high-profile accidents in 2013 that led to a safety assessment by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). In a March 2014 report to the U.S. Congress, the FRA criticized the nation's second-largest railroad for a "poor safety culture" and "ineffective training". The NTSB released a report late last year that also identified common safety issues, but Sumwalt said Tuesday's crash may be unrelated. "I would be very cautious with trying to draw a nexus with what may have happened with Metro-North in the past and this accident," he said. The crash appeared to be the deadliest rail accident in the New York area since March 1982, when nine teenagers in a van were killed when a train crashed into them at a crossing in Mineola. A Metro-North train derailed near the northern edge of New York City in December 2013, killing four people and injuring 70. In May 2013, two Metro-North passenger trains collided in Connecticut, injuring more than 70. Some 650 passengers regularly take the 5:44 train, which carries commuters through some of country's wealthiest suburbs. Fifteen people were injured, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo said. One passenger remained in critical condition and another passenger in "serious" condition on Wednesday afternoon at the local trauma hospital along with six other patients with less serious injuries, Westchester Medical Center officials said. The Mercedes' driver was identified as Ellen Brody, a 49-year-old jewelry-shop worker with three children, according to Paul Feiner, the Greenburgh town supervisor. "She was not a risk-taker in terms of safety," Feiner, who described himself as a family friend, said in a telephone interview. One of the killed passengers was identified as Eric Vandercar, who worked at Mesirow Financial, according to a statement by his previous employer, Morgan Stanley. Another was Walter Liedtke, a curator of European paintings for New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the museum said. Collisions at grade crossings in the United States have declined by more than 40 percent to 2,091 in 2013, from 3,502 at the turn of the century, according to data compiled by the Association of American Railroads and the FRA. Graphic: http://link.reuters.com/syh93w (Additional reporting by Bill Trott and Eric Beech in Washington, Nick Carey in Chicago, Dan Burns, Barbara Goldberg and Jed Horowitz in New York; Writing by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Scott Malone, Will Dunham and Grant McCool)

New York City train derailment caused $9 million in damage: NTSB

New York City train derailment caused $9 million in damage: NTSB Tue, Jan 14 17:20 PM EST image By Marina Lopes NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York commuter train derailment that killed four people in December caused more than $9 million in damage, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday. A preliminary report issued by the federal agency found the train's signal system, brakes and other mechanical equipment were functioning normally when all seven of its cars derailed in the Bronx. The finding may bolster allegations that train engineer William Rockefeller, 46, was to blame for the crash. Investigators say Rockefeller told them he "zoned out" as the train sped through a curve at 82 miles per hour, (132 km per hour), nearly three times the speed limit. The crash also critically injured 75 of the 115 people on board and snarled travel for the roughly 26,000 regular commuters on the Metro-North Hudson line, which serves suburbs north of New York City. The report could be instrumental in determining whether the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the parent of Metro-North, will be held liable for the crash, legal experts said. While the new information in the report adds evidence that human error may have caused the derailment, the MTA could still be held liable for the negligence of its employees under a common-law doctrine known as "vicarious liability," experts said shortly after the crash. Michael Lamonsoff, a lawyer who represents 10 people injured in the derailment who have given legal notice they plan to sue, said the accident could have been prevented if an alert system had been properly installed. "All these people were assuming they were traveling safely, but they were playing Russian roulette with the possibility of a human error that could have occurred," Lamonsoff said. While the train was equipped with an alerting system in its rear car, sources told Reuters, the driver was running the train from a "control cab" at the front of the first passenger carriage. (Reporting by Marina Lopes; Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Steve Orlofsky) =================================== Analysis: Two factors key to lawsuits over New York train crash Thu, Dec 05 01:03 AM EST image By Andrew Longstreth NEW YORK (Reuters) - For lawyers preparing to sue over Sunday's deadly New York commuter rail accident, their success in court may depend largely on two factors: whether human error caused the derailment and if state or federal law governs railroad safety in the case. Tens or hundreds of millions of dollars could be at stake, based on previous cases. A Cook County, Illinois, jury in 2009, awarded more than $29.5 million to a Chicago woman injured in a 2005 commuter train derailment. The investigation into the Metro-North derailment in the Bronx, which killed four and critically injured 11, has centered on the actions of the train's engineer, William Rockefeller. He told investigators he lost focus right before the crash, his labor union leader told Reuters. Investigators have said the seven-car train was traveling at 82 mph, nearly three times the speed limit for the curved section of track where it crashed. A lawyer for Rockefeller was not immediately available for comment, and the National Transportation Safety Board has said it has not reached a conclusion into the accident's cause and would continue its work for weeks, if not months. Authorities have not found any mechanical problems with the train so far, but a safety system designed to keep an engineer alert was not installed in the car from which Rockefeller was controlling the train, a source familiar with the railroad's operation told Reuters. If government investigators determine human error caused the derailment, the agency operating the train could be held liable for the negligence of its employees under a common-law doctrine known as "vicarious liability." That doctrine could apply, experts say, even if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the parent of Metro-North, can say it had no reason to question the engineer's competence. "The case will turn on his conduct, not on the conduct of the MTA," UCLA law professor Richard Abel said. If the accident is deemed to have been caused by a mechanical failure, liability could be spread among several possible defendants, including manufacturers of any parts found to have failed and various contractors. No lawsuits have yet been filed in the wake of the crash, but New York plaintiffs' attorney Michael Lamonsoff told Reuters on Wednesday he had notified Metro-North that he planned to file a negligence suit on behalf of two injured passengers. Another lawyer, Joel Faxon of New Haven, Connecticut, said he had consulted with two families about potential claims. The MTA "own the crash" if there was personnel error, he said. A spokesman for the MTA declined to comment about the agency's potential liability. Metro-North carries $10 million in liability insurance coverage and the MTA has an additional $50 million through a subsidiary, an MTA official said. The agency also has $350 million in coverage through commercial markets, the official said. FEDERAL OR STATE LAW? But there is a way for Metro-North to avoid liability - by arguing that federal law, not state law, governs the case. Defendants can argue that claims typically brought under state law, including negligence, are in fact barred if the conduct at issue is governed by federal laws and regulations. The doctrine is known as federal pre-emption, and a number of federal statutes address railroad safety and maintenance issues. If a defendant prevails on the pre-emption issue, it can avoid liability if it can show it complied with federal requirements. The challenge for the plaintiffs in the New York case is to plead claims that avoid citing conduct covered in relevant federal laws and regulations, said Mike Danko, a California plaintiffs' attorney. "That's where the fight is going to be," he said. Metro-North, in fact, raised that argument in lawsuits filed earlier this year by people injured in a May collision of two of its trains in Connecticut. Those lawsuits are still in their early stages and the pre-emption issue has not been resolved. Even if it loses on all those issues, Metro-North is likely to argue that as a public entity, it is immune from punitive damages. In civil litigation, judges or juries often award damages to the winning plaintiffs both to compensate them for their injuries and to punish the defendant. But government agencies are often shielded from punitive damages. Metro-North has also raised that defense in the litigation stemming from the May accident. If the railway is sued and loses, federal law allows awards of up to $200 million in total to rail passengers for all claims arising from a single incident. (Reporting by Andrew Longstreth; Editing by Eric Effron, Peter Henderson and Peter Cooney) ===========================