Major grade-crossing accident in Valhalla 2/3/15

[Ken W2KB]

not every crash is same, depends where tank gets hit, depends how much fuel it contains etc etc there are no cookie cutter accidents.

Yes I understand that and I presume the NTSB investigator does too. What I was referring to is what ignited the fire inside the MU car. I've seen it speculated here and other places, I've even see railroaders speculating, that it was the still-energized third rail penetrating the carbody. It seems more likely to me it was the gasoline from the vehicle that was ignited by sparks as the SUV was pushed down the rails that started the fire inside the car. I said I will be interested in seeing what NTSB finds. As their investigator referred to, there have been many grade crossing collisions between vehicles and MU cars on Metro-North and the LIRR. You almost never see the kind of fire and damage you had in this one.

I find it hard to believe the third rail was still energized when it punched through the MU car but I guess it's possible. I don't think it's very likely though. I think we should wait and see what the NTSB comes up with. If that's okay with you.

My guess? We know the carbody was punctured by the third rail. We know the Mercedes was dragged several hundred feet down the tracks. Seems likely that as the vehicle was being dragged, gasoline was being sprayed all over the place, including into the car through the gashes caused by the broken rails. With all that metal hitting metal you wouldn't really need the third rail to be energized to get enough sparks to cause the gasoline to ignite.

A spark from a severed interior lighting or other wire in the damaged railcar would be sufficient to ignite vaporized gasoline.

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

9 crossings identified on Upper Harlem electric territoy:

-White Plains: Virginia Rd. (Rank: 3. Difficult to eliminate; major thoroughfare).
-Valhalla: Cleveland St (rank: 11; should be closed - nearby overhead bridge); Commerce St (rank: should be reconfigured; overpass possible?); Lakeview Av (rank: 7; difficult due to proximity of stone businesses; they'd have to be relo'd for a bridge)
-Hawthorne: Stevens (aka Gates of Heaven; rank: 4; difficult due to proximity of main cemetery office)
-Katonah: Jay St. (rank: 1. Impossible to eliminate/close. Right downtown. Quad gates?)
-Mt. Kisco: Green Ln. (rank: 6; is this Reader's Digest? If it is, people actually DRIVE onto the train tracks here because their GPS said so.)
-Chappaqua: Roaring Brook (rank: 10; actually, I think THIS is Reader's Digest; plenty of room for a bridge it looks like).
-Brewster: (Rank: 14. not sure what this road is, but if I have the crossing right, it's right by the train station. Unlikely closure/reconfigure candidate).

I could see Green Ln. being closeable. Saw Mill's got proper interchanges to both parkway directions 1 mile to the south and 1 mile to the north. There's no reason to have one of those deathtrap unidirectional "T" side street intersections there. I would be too scared to take that shortcut with the better options so close.

Not sure why Commerce St. is needed either. If they made Wall St. a thru street by the cemetery garage it's 1/2 mile and a right-turn onto Lakeview to make exactly the same move. At a nice, good-sightline perpendicular angle to both the parkway and the tracks instead of that crazy bad-angle S-curve where you can't see anything at all. That is one of the dumber parkway intersections still in existence.

Including the Cleveland St. rec, that's a third of them at no cost other than some pavement through a dirt pit and maybe a short-cycle traffic light at Wall/Lakeview.


Still think Ellen Ave./Brewster Hwy. is one of the dumber ones. It only exists so the townies can freeload free station parking and the crossing geometry is so horrible I'm not even sure a 3 MPH collision 8 feet from the station platform is preventable. There are exactly 2 homes at the top of the hill, long driveways meeting at the center where the dirt lots are. I can't imagine they'd be at any loss of means to string those driveways together the final 400 ft. to the Hillsdale Terrace cul de sac then sell the muddy dirt lots for 2 or 3 more houses. "But don't you dare take away my free parking!", says the hamlet. So slow-speed demolition derby it will continue to be. What I said about these locals still not being ready to have this conversation.

That's a coulda/shoulda 4th elimination which would completely separate from Jay St. Katonah to NY 312 Dykemans, 13 miles.


The rest? W. Stevens is so low-volume only having the cemetery office that it's least concern. Jay St. is a concern, but the hardest of 'em all to solve and probably infeasible. Lakeview is at least a well-designed parkway intersection with lots more queue length than the others. Low concern.


So...you do what you can with Virginia and Roaring Brook. Virginia is absolutely wretched. Horrible angle, on a hill, narrow as hell. Elimination infeasible, but they definitely have to do some sort of major-league reconfig to get that crossing perpendicular and at level grade. Roaring Brook is probably the best outright cost-effective elimination candidate since the tracks are in a dip with gentle hills on both sides. Fill + overpass.


That leaves:
-- Blown-up and reconfigured Virginia Rd.
-- Lakeview Ave. (quad gates)
-- (probably) W. Stevens
-- Jay St. (quad gates AND advance warning doodads)
-- (probably) Brewster free parking, and a lot of screaming before conceding that one.


Not bad. Better if you could hold the line on closing Brewster and get this list cut in half, because that would give you the 13 mi. gap north of Jay, and a 13 mi. gap south of Jay to W. Stevens and Lakeview. They could totally live with that.



But...residents concerned today about safety will jealously guard their shortcuts tomorrow. That's why most RR's have so many lingering superfluous or outright duplicate crossings that SHOULD be straight-up jersey barriered to no one's loss and some town's emergency liability's gain...but can't, because that would be starting World War III. So it goes.

[Tommy Meehan]

A spark from a severed interior lighting or other wire in the damaged railcar would be sufficient to ignite vaporized gasoline.

True or other ways as Ridgefielder mentioned. Also the initial electrical arc as the third rail shorted out on contact could have set everything off. I'm willing to wait and see what NTSB comes up with but it may be a good while.

[s4ny]

The woman in the Mercedes SUV was driving south from Chappaqua to Scarsdale. I do not understand
why she was going north on Commerce Street when her car was hit. I know there was an accident blocking lanes on
the Taconic Parkway, but to me that doesn't explain it.

[expresstrain]

The woman in the Mercedes SUV was driving south from Chappaqua to Scarsdale. I do not understand
why she was going north on Commerce Street when her car was hit. I know there was an accident blocking lanes on
the Taconic Parkway, but to me that doesn't explain it.

I am glad someone asked this question, because this has puzzled me since the direction in which she was travelling first came to light. I can't figure out any logical scenario where you'd be forced off the Southbound Taconic (say, at Stevens Ave.) because of the earlier automobile accident closing the southbound parkway, and then to rejoin the Taconic you'd wind up heading northbound on Commerce. Only thing I can come up with is she took some circuitous route which ended up heading east on Lakeview to rejoin the Taconic, but Lakeview was backed up, so she went north on Commerce thinking she could turn right onto the Taconic from Commerce? (I think, but am not sure, that would not have been possible owing to the parkway closure.)

Very odd. I suspect the frustration factor involved in the detours she must have taken -- and how frazzled that might make anyone -- might be related to that final bad decision.

[Ridgefielder]

The woman in the Mercedes SUV was driving south from Chappaqua to Scarsdale. I do not understand
why she was going north on Commerce Street when her car was hit. I know there was an accident blocking lanes on
the Taconic Parkway, but to me that doesn't explain it.

You know, that's been puzzling me, too. Why was she going north on Commerce? She was driving *away* from Edgemont, not toward it.

It would seem that the driver of the vehicle that was hit by the train IGNORED the flashing lights and the fact that the gates were coming down and it would seem that the driver of the Mercedes SUV tried to 'beat the gate' by going UNDER said gate (not around) presumably before the gate had come down completely - it may be that the SUV driver tried to stop BEFORE going under the gate but could not due to black ice or mech failure with the brakes

Take a look at the location on a map. The driver was stopped on the crossing waiting for traffic to clear ahead so she could either pull onto or cross the Taconic Parkway. The flashers & gates started after she had already been motionless at the crossing for some span of time. Press reports quote the driver of the car stopped behind as seeing her get out of her vehicle when the gate hit it, look at the gate, then get back in and drive forward into the path of the train. I can only surmise that she panicked and lost her head when she saw the express bearing down on her.

[BenH]

Interesting set of images from the NTSB's website:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ntsb/sets ... 647203205/

[justalurker66]

This incident was a "perfect storm" ... a whole bunch of things lined up perfectly for something bad to happen.

How many accidents have a fireball penetrating the passenger compartment of a rail car? Sure, hit a tanker semi and one has a lot more fuel to vaporize and burn, but an SUV? Even with worse crashes, do fireballs get inside the passenger compartment often?

How many accidents have lifted rails to penetrate the passenger compartment of a rail car?

While statistically this was a bad crossing and this particular crossing should have been closed due to those statistics once the panic and emotions die down I believe the rationalization will begin. Unless there are a slew of similar accidents to back up the NEED to eliminate all third rail crossings I do not see that happening.

Even though this was MTA's most fatal incident only five passengers died on a train of 650-700.

There will be people who fight to keep the crossings open. They serve the purpose of allowing the community to cross the tracks. Rails and roads will continue to co-exist.

[Backshophoss]

The Parkways design dates back to 1930's-1940's era,so the cure-all of adding traffic lights at certain "exits/intersections",at
that time the Parkways had tolls and were maintained by the "East Hudson Parkway Authorty" till turned over to NYSDOT
around the mid 1970's,then the parkways became the state's problem.
The state did some needed improvements,but were sometimes "half baked " fixes at best,along with removing the remaining toll plazas.
Roaring Brook Road: The back side access to the Reader's Digest HQ campus is 500 ft up hill from the tracks,If a bridge/overpass started
started there and spanned the tracks and the NB parkway lanes,the meadian is Very Wide there,however do to an intersection of Roaring Brook
and a tiny lane wandering to to the NW and some homes in that hollow,and a Road Salt/Sand Dump ,there's no space to build bridge
approachs both Roaring Brook and that lane go upgrade out of the hollow. Unknown if School buses from H Greeley High School
still use Roaring Brook to reach Millwood/west side of town.
Green Lane:Light Industry area,tracks were elevated out of a swamp,gentle curve to the right,Wide meadian there as well,
Cheaper to close it outright then build an overpass

[litz]

What about installing a device like a dragging equipment detector to shut off the third rail if it detects something like this?

The power protection system relay would detect the fault (short to ground) and trip the breakers. Nothing can be done to prevent the initial flashover.

Are you sure, because there are a lot of videos and photos online showing the cars burning and the rear cars still have lights on.

Batteries, I'd guess? There has to be SOME lighting for emergencies (the red lights over the open doors I guess are also part of some kind of signaling system to the operator of door status) ...

[RearOfSignal]

The woman in the Mercedes SUV was driving south from Chappaqua to Scarsdale. I do not understand
why she was going north on Commerce Street when her car was hit. I know there was an accident blocking lanes on
the Taconic Parkway, but to me that doesn't explain it.

You know, that's been puzzling me, too. Why was she going north on Commerce? She was driving *away* from Edgemont, not toward it.

It would seem that the driver of the vehicle that was hit by the train IGNORED the flashing lights and the fact that the gates were coming down and it would seem that the driver of the Mercedes SUV tried to 'beat the gate' by going UNDER said gate (not around) presumably before the gate had come down completely - it may be that the SUV driver tried to stop BEFORE going under the gate but could not due to black ice or mech failure with the brakes

Take a look at the location on a map. The driver was stopped on the crossing waiting for traffic to clear ahead so she could either pull onto or cross the Taconic Parkway. The flashers & gates started after she had already been motionless at the crossing for some span of time. Press reports quote the driver of the car stopped behind as seeing her get out of her vehicle when the gate hit it, look at the gate, then get back in and drive forward into the path of the train. I can only surmise that she panicked and lost her head when she saw the express bearing down on her.

Maybe she was stopping somewhere before going home? That's not an outrageous idea is it? Why does she have to go straight home?

[RearOfSignal]

What about installing a device like a dragging equipment detector to shut off the third rail if it detects something like this?

The power protection system relay would detect the fault (short to ground) and trip the breakers. Nothing can be done to prevent the initial flashover.

Are you sure, because there are a lot of videos and photos online showing the cars burning and the rear cars still have lights on.

Batteries, I'd guess? There has to be SOME lighting for emergencies (the red lights over the open doors I guess are also part of some kind of signaling system to the operator of door status) ...

Yes, batteries, all MNR passenger cars have a battery system.

[litz]

Reportedly there was a serious accident on the adjacent Taconic State Parkway and traffic was backing up. See below. I'm not sure which direction the motorist was heading but there is very little room to maneuver.

Does anyone know if the gate at that location have the blinking lights on top of the arms or only next to the X?

I'm pretty sure the DOT specs for crossing gates mandates flashing red lights along the length of the gate arm with a solid red light at the tip of the arm.

[litz]

Interesting set of images from the NTSB's website:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ntsb/sets ... 647203205/

Well ... well ... ok, I'll say it ... how in all that's holy did that engineer escape?

Probably the luckiest person in that entire first car ...

[num1hendrickfan]

This incident was a "perfect storm" ... a whole bunch of things lined up perfectly for something bad to happen.

How many accidents have a fireball penetrating the passenger compartment of a rail car? Sure, hit a tanker semi and one has a lot more fuel to vaporize and burn, but an SUV? Even with worse crashes, do fireballs get inside the passenger compartment often?

Last one I recall was when a tandem dump truck hit an Amtrak train out west, I believe in Nevada. Five people on the train perished along with the trucks driver. That incident was in 2011.