By: Jon Hilkevitch

March 5, 2004, Chicago Tribune

Metra's deadly accident involving a student engineer last week marked the second major incident in five months in which inexperienced engineers were at the controls, raising questions about Metra's training and concerns about veteran crews retiring.

Investigators said they are closing in on human error as the primary cause of both Metra accidents, which resulted in one death, dozens of injuries and millions of dollars in damage.

Rail safety experts, while cautioning that two events do not constitute a surge of accidents, said Metra should step back and review its training and oversight procedures.

"There are all sorts of issues here that you want to look under the seat to see what is there," said Robert Gallamore, director of the Transportation Center at Northwestern University. "It's like doing a safety assessment to see what can go wrong and then proactively doing something about it."

Another concern is the number of veteran engineers nearing retirement age.

Ten of Metra's approximately 180 engineers are at least 60 years old, qualifying them to retire, and 20 engineers are close to retirement age, Metra spokeswoman Judith Pardonnet said.

The biggest block of employees, about 80 engineers, are in the middle range with 10 to 20 years' experience, she added. About 75 engineers are relatively new, with 10 years or less on the job.

Pardonnet said the commuter railroad reviews accidents and injuries each month to spot trends and implement safeguards.

"We will do everything in our power to ensure that something like [the recent accidents] will never happen again," Pardonnet said.

On Oct. 12, a Metra Rock Island District Line train operated by a rookie engineer derailed on Chicago's South Side when it went through a 10 m.p.h. track crossover at almost 70 m.p.h. Forty-five passengers were injured and two new locomotives suffered more than $5 million in damage.

The 34-year-old engineer, who had graduated from Metra's engineer school three months earlier, missed at least two signals warning him to slow down and prepare for the switch, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, which is working on a final report on the wreck.

An internal Metra probe determined the engineer caused the accident.

Metra officials quickly became convinced the engineer should never operate a locomotive again.

Instead of firing him, Metra negotiated an agreement in which the engineer relinquished his engineer's certification permanently in exchange for working as a Metra conductor, officials and union representatives said.

The NTSB is looking into the Rock Island engineer's training and qualifications, said safety board spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz.

On Feb. 23, a 10-year-old Schaumburg boy was killed by a Metra express train in River Grove after he exited another train operated by a 27-year-old student engineer who was being supervised by an instructor.

The trainee is described as an excellent student who received high test scores in his engineer classes, which run through May. He previously worked for about three years in Metra's track department and was promoted to a foreman position, Pardonnet said.

The student and the engineer serving as his instructor on the Feb. 23 trip are the focus of the accident that killed Michael S. DeLarco.

Metra's safety director said the student and the instructor did not follow safety procedures related to letting off passengers, including a requirement to radio the approaching train that hit the boy.

Metra officials, meanwhile, defended their nine-month engineer-certification program as a model emulated by other commuter railroads.

The program includes two months of classroom instruction and simulator training at the Illinois Institute of Technology, followed by intensive instruction operating Metra trains under direct supervision.

But Metra soon will lose some of its most seasoned engineers because of retirement incentives.

"That awful bubble of Baby Boomers going into retirement has got the railroad industry worried," said Gallamore, a former executive with Union Pacific Railroad. "They are replacing people at a rate we haven't seen since deregulation in 1980."