LIRR Explanation of March 18th Derailment and the real explanation of March 18th Derailment

Every single person who lives within the LIRR's commuting realm has either heard about or experienced first hand the effects of the March 18th Derailment of a non-passenger train west of Jamaica.  And finally the LIRR has come out of radio silence on the incident and has released a statement on the derailment incident, here it is:

"To Our Customers:

The LIRR will run normal weekend service and expects to return to regular AM/PM Peak service starting Monday, March 25, following extensive repairs required after Monday’s derailment of a non-passenger train west of the Forest Hills station.

LIRR crews have worked around the clock since the derailment to re-rail the four cars that derailed and repair damage to approximately 3/4-mile of track. More than 1,540 damaged concrete ties have been replaced along with running rail. Some 3,700 feet of third rail, which provides the electricity needed to run most LIRR trains, also is being installed or repaired.

The cause of the derailment remains under investigation by a team of safety experts. Extensive testing of the newly refurbished section of track will be completed before it is returned to service, including use of the LIRR’s special track geometry car and the Sperry Rail Car, which checks for any internal rail defects using ultrasonic and induction test equipment.

As you are aware, this week the LIRR was forced to cancel and/or divert a relatively small number of AM and PM trains due to the derailment and the ongoing repair work. The derailment occurred in a critical area between Jamaica and Penn Station, taking out one of four tracks that are heavily used throughout the day. Most of the repair work was scheduled during off peak hours to minimize the impact on rush hour service. LIRR workers will continue their repair efforts this weekend but there will be no effect on weekend train service.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused during your travels on the LIRR and we appreciate your patience."

 So as you might be able to tell, this "customer explanation" by the LIRR's public affairs [fiction] department leaves a lot to be desired.  It appears they're going with the "we really know what happened but we're going to say that the incident is "under investigation" with the hope by the time that the official report comes out you will all have forgotten about this mess and not want to know anything more" deal.

But a friend of a poster on Railroad.net who works for the railroad basically gives this as the explanation: so along the tracks in Automatic Train Control territory there exists these things called "insulator joints."  Basically these things are joints every so often that break sit between two rails and divide the section of track into multiple signal "blocks" for the trains to operate over (the insulator joint is where one block ends and another one begins).

So what appears to have happened is that due to the cold, the rails contracted and the two pieces of rail came apart at the insulator joint.  This is very much like to what happens with a "broken rail" except this time there was one very different thing.

On a normal broken rail, the break happens someplace on the rail away from the joint the break in the rail will interrupt signal communications in that signal block and that will cause all the signals to turn to stop.  Thus if there is a broken rail ahead, the signal right before it would read stop, and you would subsequently stop and not venture into the segment of track where the broken rail lies (and you wouldn't derail over the broken rail either).

But because this break happened at an insulator joint, there was no signal communication to interrupt, because the insulator was intentionally breaking up the signal blocks already (so nothing appeared to have changed).  So because there was no signal communication interrupted, the cab signals for that train read full speed (80 m.p.h.) and the train proceeded along normally just like that.

So there was no way for anybody to tell that this break had actually occurred.  Had the break occurred someplace else, the signal communication would have been interrupted, the signals would have tripped, and the train would have been stopped long before it reached the break.  Then the break would have been repaired right there, and everything would be all fine and good for Tuesday morning's rush.

But the break happened where it happened.  So the train was on a non-revenue deadhead move going westbound on mainline track 1 (the westbound express track) and it was moving along at just about MAS (Maximum Authorized Speed).  The train approached the broken joint and the fist 8 cars flew over the broken spot no problem.  However the ninth car of the twelve car train caught the joint and the last four cars of the train began to derail.

Because the first eight cars rocketed over the break just fine, the crew didn't know what was happening at first.  But now because the last four cars had hopped off the rails, they had subsequently stopped drawing power from the third rail, and four cars on the back of the train smashing into concrete ties and third rail boards subsequently caused the train to lose speed (as the laws of Physics would prescribe).

The engineer applied more power to try and get the train up to speed and reported the odd condition to LIRR operations.

So still not realizing that the train has derailed, the train proceeded west for another two minutes or so later and the train "dumped" (dumped: the train automatically applied its emergency breaks and came to a stop by itself).  When the engineer couldn't get the train to build up enough break pressure, he reported the latest development to the LIRR operations center, and sent the conductor to the back of the train to investigate.

When the conductor walked back he discovered what really happened.  The last four cars were off the rails!  And in the process the last four cars on the ground managed to chop up over 3,500 feet of third rail, 2,000 feet of running rail, and over 1,500 concrete ties.

So at that point the LIRR began the long process of re-railing the four cars and repairing the three-quarter mile section of track that was damaged--all the while doing that next to three other tracks that had trains sailing down at pretty high speeds all day.

The loss of the one track all week caused the delays and cancellations during the rush hours that we all had to endure the last couple days.  But the good news is that the LIRR expects to run full AM/PM peak service on Monday.

The Blame Game
So with any big incident that causes even the slightest inconvenience to people, loud cries for answers start to sound.  The LIRR did a phenomenal job of keeping its mouth shut throughout the entire incident and not assigning blame to quickly.

Before any other disgruntled commuters start assigning blame, let's make it clear that it was not the train crew's fault.  There was no possible way for them to tell in the middle of the night that a tiny defect had developed in the rail at an insulator joint down the line.  The engineer had clear signals and was clear to go 80, so that's what he did.  From what I can see, the engineer followed all the rules and did everything within his control to handle the situation.  Trains have power draw problems all the time.  Normally they just pump the gas and the problem resolves itself.

It is also not the railroad's fault.  There is nothing they could have done different to prevent this.  The weather god's don't consult the LIRR every time they want to fiddle with the air temperature.  Insulator joints are a necessary evil in a signal system of this kind.  There are hundreds of them all over the railroad.

So the only thing we can blame this incident on is mother nature.  If it was 65 degrees and nice out like it's supposed to be this time of year, the break would have never happened.  But such are the difficulties that arise when you live in a climate that experiences big temperature shifts throughout the year.

All in all, while it was a brief discomfort at the time to some commuters, the situation wasn't all that bad (imagine if this happened someplace else where the LIRR didn't have three other tracks to run trains on!  All hell would break loose, that's for sure!).  The LIRR did a pretty good job of fixing everything up quickly (although you know some news outlet is going to whine that they didn't do it fast enough) and we should be all set to go for Monday morning.  You can bet the mortgage that the LIRR's going to do some extensive testing of the tracks in this area today before trains start rolling over it tomorrow (and I wouldn't be surprised if the LIRR would avoid using this track completely during off-peak hours for a while until they can do some more permanent repairs).

**NOTE: this explanation is purely unofficial in nature and is not meant to be interpreted as an official explanation of the incident.  This site is in no way affilated with the LIRR.  Any official explanation is pending the completion of the LIRR investigation.  If you have any question about this information, please contact me.