National Transportation Safety Board Railroad Accident Report: Collision ofWashington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Train T-111 with Standing Train at Shady Grove Passenger Station, Gaithersburg, Maryland, January 6, 1996

摘要

On January 6, 1996, Washington Metorpolitan Area Transit Autority (WMATA)Metrorail subway train No. T-111 failed to come to a stop at the above-ground Shady Grove, Maryland, Passenger station, the final station on the Metrorail Red Line. The four-car train ran by the station platform and continued about 470 feet into the Metrorail yard north of the station, where it struck a standing, unoccupied subway train that was awaiting assignment. The operator of train T-111 was fatally injured; the train's two passengers were not injured. Total property damages were estimated to be between $2.1 $2.6 million. The safety issues discussed in this report are adequacy and appropriateness of WMATA methods of management, decisionmaking, and communication; safety implications of the decision to eliminate routine manual train operation on the Metrorail system; effectiveness of using performance levels to control train speed; compatibility between railcar braking performance and design of the automatic train control system; and adequacy of WMATA and Montgomery County emergency response procedures.