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On the morning of December 1, 2013, a Metro-North Railroad Hudson Line passenger train derailed near the Spuyten Duyvil station in the New York City borough of the Bronx. Four of about 115 passengers were killed and another 61 injured; the accident caused $9 million worth of damage.〔 It was the deadliest train accident within New York City since a 1991 subway derailment in lower Manhattan, and the first accident in Metro-North's history to result in passenger fatalities. Early investigations found that the train had gone into the curve where it derailed at almost three times the posted speed limit. The engineer, William Rockefeller, later admitted that before reaching the curve he had gone into a "daze", a sort of highway hypnosis. He has since been suspended without pay; prosecutors are considering bringing criminal charges and claims have already been filed against him, Metro-North and the MTA. The leader of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) team investigating said it was likely that the accident would have been prevented had positive train control (PTC) been installed. A prior federal mandate requires installation of the system by 2015. Due to a number of other recent accidents involving Metro-North trains and tracks, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) demanded improved safety measures, which Metro-North began implementing within a week of the accident. In late 2014, almost a year after the accident, the NTSB released its final report on the accident. After reiterating its earlier conclusion that PTC would have prevented the accident entirely, it found the most direct cause was Rockefeller's inattention as the train entered the curve. There were other contributing factors. A medical examination following the accident diagnosed sleep apnea, which had hampered his ability to fully adjust his sleep patterns to the morning shift which he had begun working two weeks earlier. The report faulted both Metro-North for not screening its employees in sensitive positions for sleep disorders, and the FRA for not requiring railroads do such screening.〔 ==Background== The train involved in the accident was the second southbound Hudson Line train of the day, leaving Poughkeepsie, the line's northern terminus, at its scheduled departure time of 5:54 a.m. EST.〔Metropolitan Transportation Authority, ; November 17, 2013; retrieved December 5, 2013.〕 It was powered by a GE P32AC-DM locomotive, capable of running on either diesel fuel or electricity from a third rail. Since Metro-North uses push-pull trains, it was situated at the northern, or rear, end of the train to minimize noise on the underground platforms at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, its final destination, where it was scheduled to arrive at 7:43.〔 It carried about 115 passengers.〔 Engineer William Rockefeller, a 15-year Metro-North veteran who had started as a clerk in the stationmaster's office at Grand Central and then spent 10 years as an engineer, was operating the train from the cab car, at the front of a consist of seven Bombardier-made Shoreliner passenger coaches,〔 in a mix of Metro-North and Connecticut Department of Transportation livery,〔The two agencies share equipment for operation on the non-electrified Danbury and Waterbury branches of the New Haven Line.〕 two of which were closed off and used only for deadheading by employees. He had recently begun working the morning shift after working afternoons, a change he later told investigators he had made reluctantly,〔''8808 Engineer'', 23.〕 requiring that he leave his home in Germantown, approximately north of Poughkeepsie, at 3:30 a.m. for work. To make sure he had adequate rest before his shift, he had gone to bed at 8:30 p.m. the night before following a nine-hour shift the preceding day.〔 He had arrived at work on time after a 43-minute drive, after which he bought a cup of coffee and a hard roll, filled out paperwork and attended a standard safety briefing, followed by tests of the train's safety equipment.〔''8808 Engineer'', 5-6〕 Another veteran employee, Michael Hermann, who in his limited time working with Rockefeller had praised the engineer's "very smooth" train handling to other Metro-North employees,〔''Conductor'', 50.〕 was the conductor; his one assistant leaving Poughkeepsie was Maria Herbert, with whom he regularly worked.〔''Conductor'', 39-40.〕 Once underway in predawn darkness that gradually lightened to full daylight,〔''8808 Engineer'', 19〕 the train proceeded south along the two-track main line, also used by Amtrak for its Empire Service trains. From Poughkeepsie it continued through the mid- and lower Hudson Valley, often right next to the river. Under electromotor diesel power, it made all nine of its scheduled stops in the upper, non-electrified portion of the Hudson Line in Dutchess, Putnam and Westchester counties without incident. After Croton-Harmon, the northern end of the line's electrification, where it picked up another assistant conductor, Chris Kelly, it was held up briefly.〔''8808 Engineer'', 7〕 The next stop was Ossining, where it became an express, continuing under diesel power.〔Despite the presence of electrification, Metro-North's dual-mode trains use it only when they enter the Park Avenue Tunnel, since New York City bans the use of diesel locomotives in tunnels. Similar bans apply to the Long Island Railroad, where diesel trains must also be dual-mode.〕 Between Ossining and the last stop, Tarrytown,〔 Hermann and Herbert swept toward the center of the train, where they met briefly. After Tarrytown, with the train running only a minute behind schedule,〔''8808 Engineer'', 34.〕 they began returning to opposite ends of the train, taking seat checks from any passengers who might have boarded there. They were positioning themselves for where Metro-North's rules required them to be, so Herbert could join Rockefeller in the cab and call out signals after the last stop, Harlem–125th Street. Hermann, in the rear deadhead car with what he estimated to be six other employees, including Kelly, who he had instructed to do so as the train's light passenger load did not require a third conductor, began doing his paperwork for the trip and preparing for his next.〔 The train continued south over the next 〔 on a straight set of four tracks next to the river, all with third rails, past the four stations along the line in the city of Yonkers, where a permanent speed restriction of through downtown was augmented by a temporary limit around Ludlow due to construction.〔''8808 Engineer'', 8〕 South of that station the train entered the Bronx. About south of the Riverdale station, Rockefeller should have begun to slow the train down in anticipation of the curve immediately before Spuyten Duyvil station, below the Henry Hudson Bridge where the Harlem River Ship Canal flows into the Hudson across from the northern tip of Manhattan Island. Instead, he later said: It was interrupted when, he felt, "something wasn't right with (train )."〔 Linda Smith, of Newburgh, who had boarded the train at Beacon with her sister Donna to see a choral performance at Lincoln Center, recalled that although she, too, was not fully awake, something seemed wrong. "It was bumpy and just seemed really at that point I was aware of going very fast." In the cab, Rockefeller initiated an emergency application of the brakes in an attempt to slow the train down. But it was already taking the curve.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「December 2013 Spuyten Duyvil derailment」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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