NJ Transit official warned feds of staffing crisis 2 months before Hoboken crash

A top official at NJ Transit wrote a letter to federal safety regulators warning them about a staffing shortage at the agency two months before a deadly commuter train crash last year, federal and state officials have confirmed.

In the letter, Robert Lavell, the agency's vice president and general manager of rail operations, detailed the losses: 93 non-union employees had retired from NJ Transit, or sought work elsewhere, between January 2014 and July 2016. Combined, their experience totaled 2,339 years.

The letter was sent to the Federal Railroad Administration, which at the time was conducting a safety audit of NJ Transit, the nation's third-largest mass-transit agency.

Ten weeks later, on the morning of Sept. 29, 2016, an NJ Transit commuter train from Spring Valley, New York, crashed into an end-of-track barrier at Hoboken Terminal, collapsing part of the station platform and hitting the station building.

Read more: http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/watchdog/2017/11/10/nj-transit-official-warned-feds-staffing-crisis-2-months-before-hoboken-crash/841313001/