Metro-North on time? Ha!

2013  was a bad year for Metro-North. We who ride it didn't need the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to tell us that. We've lived it, we've watched it, we've read about it. A May derailment sent more than sixty people to hospital; within a fortnight a train worker was struck and killed; a freight train derailed on Metro-North's tracks in July; and finally, most spectacularly, a train said to be going 82 MPH around a curve into a station derailed, killing four and injuring more than seventy (picture).

This spate of accidents caused the FRA to launch "Operation Deep Dive," an examination of the railroad's policies and procedures. According to the New York Times,

The Metro-North Railroad has a “deficient safety culture” and emphasizes its on-time performance over safe operations and a properly-maintained infrastructure, according to a scathing report released Friday by the Federal Railroad Administration.

2014 hasn't started much better. A worker was just killed on Monday and in January service was shut down for hours due to human error -- apparently somebody unplugged a computer.

My own experience has been much more mundane. Other than the time the train I was on ran over someone, cutting him in half and stopping the train for hours -- you can read more about it here -- my usual complaint has been about late trains. My oft-asked question has been "Has ANY Metro-North train arrived on time EVER?"

Which is why I think it's ludicrous and unbelievable that the FRA should blame Metro-North's problems on its push to be on time. I can only imagine how bad the situation really is, if that hare-brained conclusion is the best the oversight commission could come up with.