LIRR, system design cited for Sept. delays

The Long Island Rail Road and the company that designed its lightning protection system "share responsibility for the crippling effects" of a power surge that followed a lightning strike near Jamaica Station on Sept. 29, the MTA's inspector general has concluded.

The lightning strike shut down trains and stranded hundreds of passengers for hours during the evening rush hour.

"We find that the power outage and subsequent delay resulted from [the company's] design limitations and the railroad's installation deficiencies," the inspector general concluded in a report released Wednesday. "Believing that it had contracted for and installed a system providing appropriate redundancy and protection, LIRR was not adequately prepared for this emergency."

In its report, the office of MTA Inspector General Barry L. Kluger cited the LIRR's use of the wrong parts in a piece of the computer system and not noticing that the connector piece was incorrect as being responsible for the system failure that shut down and limited train service for hours.

Additionally, the report found, the company that designed the $56-million lightning detection system, Ansaldo STS, did not give the LIRR operating manuals for the system or troubleshooting procedures.

"Additional training of LIRR personnel by ASTS on troubleshooting could have mitigated the duration of the outage and prevented the human error that brought down the signals," the report concluded.

Diagnostic tools programmed into the system by ASTS "failed to pinpoint which critical components were not functioning," after the lightning strike, according to the report.

Compounding the problem, LIRR employees did not have the right replacement parts to diagnose and correct system problems and the railroad's Signals Department did not have phone numbers and email addresses for ASTS emergency assistance personnel, according to the report.

As with its disruption in 2007, the LIRR is still unable to secure the necessary level of customer communication staff required to adequately disseminate information to passengers onboard trains and customers at stations, the report said.

The report also criticizes the LIRR's current customer communications strategy, stating that "the substance of onboard messages still does not adequately and consistently explain travel conditions and offer useful information that allows customers to evaluate alternate travel options."