In the period leading up to a series of crashes, derailments and deadly on-the-job blunders, Metro-North had gradually let supervisors grow lax, training deteriorate and safety fall to a secondary concern, according to a new federal report.

The troubled railroad allowed staffing in its track maintenance department to fall so sharply that remaining workers grew fatigued from working too much overtime, and supervisors stopped doing annual performance reviews with engineers and conductors, the Federal Railroad Administration reported.

The Federal Railroad Administration issued its "Operation Deep Dive" report after teams of inspectors spent 60 days examining the railroad's operations.

Congressmen and senators from Connecticut and New York called for federal intervention after the deadly 82-mph train wreck in the Bronx on Dec. 1, which followed two calamitous derailments and a rookie dispatcher's error that sent a train hurtling 70 mph through a work zone, killing a track worker.

http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-fra-report-0315-20140314,0,1109408.story