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Regulators To Conduct Safety Review Of Metro-North Railroad

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) - The Federal Railroad Administration will launch an intensive two-month review of safety compliance and culture at Metro-North after a train derailed and killed four people earlier this month.

The effort, which beings Monday, will assess a broad range of practices at the nation's second-largest commuter railroad, including oversight of engineers, fatigue management programs and medical requirements for crew members, the Federal Railroad Administration said Thursday.

"This in-depth investigation will help ensure that Metro-North is doing everything possible to improve its safety record," U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said.

Regulators To Conduct Safety Review Of Metro-North Railroad

Metro-North spokesman Adam Lisberg said the railroad is "always happy to work with anyone who has good ideas about how to keep our customers and our employees safe." But he added that Metro-North has been engaged in its own comprehensive look at safety since May, when 76 people were injured in a derailment in Connecticut and a track foreman was struck and killed by another train.

"We've brought in a panel of outside experts months ago to take a rigorous look at what we're doing and see, if there's something that we're not seeing on the inside, if there's some overall issue about safety that we're missing," Lisberg told WCBS 880's Marla Diamond.

In this month's accident in the Bronx, the National Transportation Safety Board found that the train that derailed was going 82 mph as it entered a curve that has a 30 mph speed limit. Representatives of the train's engineer say he may have momentarily lost focus at the controls.

Last week, the railroad agency ordered Metro-North to identify places in its system with major speed changes, put an extra worker in the engineer's cab on some routes and overhaul its signal system. On Wednesday, it issued an industry-wide safety advisory, telling railroads to immediately brief employees about the derailment and emphasize the importance of speed limits.

The 60-day assessment begins Monday. It also will examine compliance with federal regulations, equipment maintenance, traffic controller training and protection for employees, the FRA said. A report with recommendations will follow, it said.

Metro-North operates trains in and out of New York City into suburbs upstate and in Connecticut. More than 280,000 riders board its trains on an average weekday.

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(TM and © Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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