The operator of the CTA train that jumped a platform and climbed an escalator at O'Hare International Airport had worked 69 hours in the week before Monday's crash, the rail union chief said today, saying the agency's way of scheduling workers needs to be changed.
The operator has told investigators she "dozed off" just before the train hit a post, catapulted onto the platform and scaled an escalator early Monday morning. More than 30 people were injured, none seriously.
Robert Kelly, head of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308, said the operator was working "extra board," meaning she called in around 4:30 p.m. each day to learn her shift.
Kelly said he wasn't trying to absolve the operator of responsibility, but that her prior week's workload played a role in the crash.
"That's the problem with working these strange hours because you get off at 6:45 in the morning and you've got to be back at 5 o'clock in the evening," he said. "It's not an easy thing to just go home and fall asleep.
"That's the life on the extra board," the union chief said.
The union plans to bring the issue up during contract talks at the end of 2015. "We have a problem with it, it's been a concern of ours," he said. "Obviously we can't do nothing about it now."
Kelly also questioned why mechanisms in place to halt a train did not work.
"Worst-case scenario, someone dozes off (and) those things are in place to stop the train," he said. "And I think what did eventually happen is she hit the end, her hand went forward, which is full power, and that train took off and catapulted as the bumper post went backwards.
"The bottom line now is we have to figure out what went wrong," Kelly said. "Because the real issue here, as far as I'm concerned, is not that an operator nodded off. There are mechanisms in place to stop this train. It didn't happen.
"We know what changes need to be made, we do this on a daily basis," Kelly added. "I can tell you from my membership this week, a lot of them are very distraught over this. This girl is torn to pieces over this."