NTSB

WASHINGTON — The National Transportation Safety Board has found that mechanical problems led to a subway derailment in Washington, DC earlier this year that injured 23 passengers. The Board said that the probable cause of the derailment of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) train was a wheel climb on a car as it traversed a standard turnout near the Mt. Vernon Square station. The wheel climb was initiated by a rough wheel surface created during maintenance, the Board determined. The accident was also caused by the lack of quality control measures to ensure that wheel surfaces were smoothed

The National Transportation Safety Board will hold a public Board meeting on Oct. 16, 2007, in its Board Room and Conference Center. One of the two items on the agenda are: On Jan. 7, 2007, about 3:45 pm, northbound WMATA Greenline Metrorail train 504 derailed one car (the 5th of 6 cars) on the train as it traversed a crossover from track 2 to track 1 near Mount Vernon Station. About 80 passengers were on board at the time of the accident. Twenty-three passengers were transported to local hospitals for treatment and released. Media Contact: Keith Holloway — Special to

WASHINGTON — The National Transportation Safety Board has determined that the probable cause of the derailment of a Chicago commuter transit train in the summer of 2006 resulted from the Chicago Transit Authority’s ineffective management and oversight of its track inspection and maintenance program and its system safety program, which resulted in unsafe track conditions. At 5:06 p.m. (CDT) on July 11, 2006, the last car of northbound Chicago Transit Authority train No. 220 derailed in the subway between Clark/Lake and Grand/Milwaukee stations in downtown Chicago. After the train came to a stop, electrical arcing between the last car and