Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad crews team up to re-rail LIRR train cars on Friday, Aug 4, 2023, a day after a train derailed east of Jamaica.
Marc A. Hermann / MTA
A faulty switch appears to be the culprit behind a Long Island Rail Road commuter train derailment in Queens earlier this month, according to the MTA.
The authority announced Friday preliminary results of the ongoing probe into the mishap just east of the Jamaica station on Aug. 3 that left 13 people injured. The investigation remains ongoing, with both the MTA and LIRR working with the Federal Railroad Administration.
Investigators found that the train derailed after traveling over what the MTA called a “misaligned” switch “for a diverging route.” No one, however, detected the problem ahead of the derailment “because of a previously unknown vulnerability in the switch’s wiring configuration.”
“Safety is the bedrock principle for everything we do at LIRR, and our core value as transportation professionals,” said Catherine Rinaldi, interim president of the Long Island Rail Road and President of Metro-North Railroad, in an Aug. 11 press release. “This incident has exposed a unique and previously unknown localized vulnerability that has been rectified. This incident has prompted us to enhance our switch inspection processes to improve the safety of the railroad going forward.”
The MTA says the switch, which is part of the complex Hall Interlocking system near where multiple LIRR branches converge, had been inspected monthly as required, but it’s believed that the switch “did not properly realign upon completion” of the most recent check.
Fifty-five people were on the eastbound LIRR train 722 when it derailed after hitting the misaligned switch at 11:12 a.m. on Aug. 3. The train had departed Grand Central Madison 29 minutes earlier, and was heading for Hempstead while moving at 54 mph through area — six miles slower than the maximum speed.
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