Operator Error Blamed in Red Line Derailment, Too

By Margaret Lyons in News on Jun 4, 2008 5:39PM

Yesterday's Red Line derailment was another case of operator error, the CTA said today, and another case of a motorman blowing a red light. This time, the operator missed a red signal light then tried to back up, which is not what you're supposed to do, and that's when the train derailed.

"We are going to study both of these events incredibly carefully," CTA President Ron Huberman said by phone from San Francisco, where he is attending a transit convention. "We think we can figure out quickly what happened. What is important is why it happened so we can determine what needs to be done to safeguard the system."

It's too early in the investigations to make recommendations for future changes, Huberman said.

According to Hani Mahmassani, a transportation prof at Northwestern, old and crappy CTA equipment may have exacerbated the problems. "It's operator error, but it involves signaling and signaling is part of the infrastructure...Modern systems tend to be more fault tolerant."

Speaking of fault tolerance, CTA ridership is up 4 percent over last year, which is part of a national trend of more people using public transportation. [Trib, S-T, AP, AP, photo by p2wy]