Red Line accident: "Cars pulled apart; wires snapped; bright flash of light"
Miranda was on the Red Line train that "uncoupled" Thursday morning at Sheridan Road, causing long delays for the morning commute. Here's her eyewitness account of what happened. (And thanks for sharing!)
"This morning, 11/17/05, I was on the Red Line train southbound when we stopped at the Sheridan station. We sat for roughly 20 minutes (about 8:10 am to 8:30 am) with no announcements or word as to what was happening. Then, as the train began to pull out of the station, the car in front of the one I was in moved...and mine didn't. The cars pulled apart, wires snapped, there was a bright flash of light, and another passenger opened the doors and we all piled off the train. The cars were at least 10 yards apart, with debris on the tracks. As I made my way down to street level, there were still no announcements. I used the pay phone in the station to call my workplace, and spent several minutes on the phone. After that--still no announcements, and no customer service representatives or CTA staff in sight.
"Luckily, I discovered that the 151 bus route stops a block from my workplace, so I was able to make it in.
"I e-mailed the CTA to tell them about the absolute lack of customer assistance and announcements, and also to ask just what the heck happened with the train (besides the obvious--yes, it uncoupled--but how?) and what they're doing to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Tekky was on the Sheridan platform at the time of the accident and filed this report:
"It started as a train whose doors wouldn't open at Sheridan. Everyone stood on the platform for a while a CTA Operator checked the doors. He returned to the lead car, and after a few more minutes the train started to move. Just as it was starting to clear the station, I heard a "crack" and saw a flash of sparks.
At this point I couldn't really see anything as I was 15 feet away and the platform was packed, but the train had separated between what I think was the 5th and 6th cars. As I walked to the stairs to jump on the "Rum Bus" (the 151) to get to work, I saw the condition of the connecting springs... They were almost just straight coils. That was all I could really see of the incident, but one of the CTA Operators on the tracks shouted out to another something about clearing the debris off the tracks.
From what I understand from the CTA Alerts, they got another crew down to Sheridan to run both parts of the train separately. "
It sounds to me like a connection between the parts of the train failed.
Most of the connection between the train cars is a big metal thing with a bunch of metal pins inside it that make contact when coupled. It kind of looks like a gigantic COM port or video port on the back of a computer. That's how data is sent from end-to-end of a train, including the announcements, door controls, information about how much power to apply to the motors in each car as controlled by the head car, braking, etc.
If there was an equipment malfunction, and one part of the train wasn't receiving those commands, you would expect that from that point on the train's doors wouldn't open properly, those cars might not move because the brakes were still applied, etc.
If this loss happened while the train was in motion, it could have resulted in a lot of injuries, since the magnetic track brakes would go on, which essentially results in the train magnetically clamping down on the rails to come to an emergency stop. Think: whiplash.
This is extremely rare. I think the last time cars became uncoupled, it was on the State Street Subway around Grand during midday. The train was in motion and it did come to a halt. I think there were some suits (or at least settlements) related to some neck injuries.
If it wasn't properly coupled in the first place, it probably wouldn't have gotten out of the yard. I wonder if there's anything that even could be done to prevent it. It's probably not necessary, since you can't account for every freak incident that could ever happen. Obviously safety is good though, because how often does anyone get hurt on the system? I think the last time an incident on the 'L' system resulted in a death (not including times where people put themselves in places where they don't belong, i.e., in a subway tunnel between stations to go tagging) was in the 1978 derailment--that's better than any American airline, any road-based service, etc.
Posted by: Tony Coppoletta | November 18, 2005 at 03:39 PM