WMATA maintenance practices questioned in NTSB Falls Church derailment report

Written by Mischa Wanek-Libman, editor
image description
A wheel is misaligned with the rail in this image from the WMATA Falls Church derailment report.
NTSB

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued its accident report on the July 2016 derailment of a Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) train traversing a crossover in the East Falls Church interlocking.

The NTSB report confirms what a WMATA-led preliminary investigation found a few days after the derailment: Deteriorated ties allowed track gauge to widen resulting in the derailment. However, NTSB’s official probabe cause places culpability on WMATA’s maintenance practices writing in the report, “the probable cause of this accident was a wide track gauge condition resulting from the sustained use of deteriorating wooden crossties due to [WMATA’s] ineffective inspection and maintenance practices and inadequate safety oversight.”

At the time of the derailment, the track gauge near the point of derailment measured 59 inches, nearly two inches wider than acceptable by WMATA standards of 57.25 inches. WMATA requires any track with gauge above 57.25 inches to be removed from service. Additionally, NTSB said WMATA track standards require there be no more than 120 inches between non-defective rail fasteners for tracks of similar construction; however, in the accident area, investigators noted more than 400 inches of track with no effective rail fasteners because of deteriorated crossties.

NTSB investigators reviewed transcripts of interviews with WMATA track inspectors and track supervisors and learned that WMATA only inspected some crossover switches, such as the one involved in this derailment, on a monthly basis. NTSB investigators reviewed WMATA’s monthly switch inspection reports from January 2015 to July 2016 and noted that all of the inspection reports for the crossover involved in this accident documented a defective condition of “15 deteriorating ties in the diamond area.” Based on this initial assessment, investigators requested documentation of all reported defective track conditions that were awaiting approval. WMATA provided a report that showed a total of 16,828 open track defects, some going back to October 2008, that were still waiting to be repaired.

Following the derailment, WMATA’s Safety Department launched its own investigation into the accident, but the agency later asked Metro Transit Police to conduct a parallel investigation after investigators ran into concerns from employee interviews, inspection reports, rail defect tracking and video recordings.

WMATA is in the middle of a year-long maintenance blitz, SafeTrack, that the agency says will perform three years of maintenance into one year. The agency also launched a new initiative called Back2Good, which builds on its maintenance plan and focuses on safety and service reliability.

 

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