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CHICAGO (WLS) –
The computer problem that caused significant delays on Metra and Amtrak at Union Station on Thursday was caused by the fall of a worker on a circuit board, said Sen. Dick Durbin after speaking with the CEO. d & # 39; Amtrak.
Senator Durbin stated that the CEO of Amtrak had told him that Amtrak had decided to perform a server upgrade during rush hours, then that a worker trying to fix the problem had fallen and hit a circuit board.
Amtrak released Friday a statement that the problems resulted from a "human error".
The statement says: "Amtrak performed a root cause analysis of the signaling system failures yesterday at the Chicago station.A human error in the process of deploying a server upgrade to our technology facility supporting our system. Controlling the distribution at the Chicago station is a human error.We have failed to provide the service that Amtrak customers, Metra commuters and the general public expect from us.
"We own the system, we will solve this problem, and more importantly, we are taking steps to improve our operations in Chicago, including appointing a former Amtrak executive to ensure we achieve the performance that our stakeholders wait for us.
"In the meantime, we apologize again to Metra and all those affected by yesterday's disturbed service."
In a statement, Senator Durbin said: "I spoke to Mr. Anderson this morning and asked him what happened in Chicago yesterday, why did thousands of commuters see their service interrupted?" He was honest and direct and admitted that Amtrak had made a series of errors, the major mistake they made was to upgrade their server computer during rush hours, which should be done in the middle of the night when only a handful of A worker came across a circuit board, turned off the computers, and interrupted the service all day.
"Today, Amtrak issued a public apology to those who were embarrassed yesterday in Chicago, and Mr. Anderson also announced that changes would be made in the future in computer programming and upgrades. But my job in Washington, along with Senator Tammy Duckworth is to ensure that these federal agencies are accountable.Amtrak failed yesterday, but I appreciate her honesty. "
Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth sent a letter to Amtrak CEO and President Richard Anderson calling for swift changes in policy and operations to prevent future equipment failures. Senators also called for the full results of the agency's investigation into the system's failure to be made public. Amtrak said it would respond to the letter "as soon as possible".
In a statement Friday, Metra said: "We understand and share your frustration at Thursday's signaling system failure at Union Station in Chicago, trying to work as best as we could in the absence of the Amtrak signaling system. but we know that delays and overcrowding were unacceptable As always, our passengers When the failures occurred, the Amtrak regulators were no longer able to automatically control train movements at the entrance and exit of the station Union Station in Chicago, crossing points and allowing only one train at a time to move, so our customers may have seen another train move while the one they were sitting on was sitting on the platform. or outside the station with significant delays.
Although we are happy that Amtrak takes its responsibilities and admits that human error has been at the root of the signaling system failure (see Amtrak statement below) this event is of great concern to us. We are working closely with Amtrak to understand what happened and we told Amtrak officials that we expected them to take immediate steps to prevent this incident from occurring. again. "
Metra and Amtrak were normally operating on Friday, a day after major signaling issues blocked traffic for 12 hours at Union Station in Chicago.
The railways have become a parking lot for dozens of trains, some with passengers stranded for hours.
The problems started at 8:30 Thursday. A communication problem between the Amtrak computer system and Union Station signaling switches has disrupted all train movements, affecting Amtrak and Metra.
WATCH: Amtrak takes stock of Union Station signaling problems and train delays
It was a domino effect and the commuters were stuck for hours while the crews were working on solving the problem.
"In my time, who is now around 18 (…), I have not seen any signaling and control system of this duration," said the spokesman of Amtrak, Marc Magliari.
Metra warned commuters that there would be significant delays, but no one expected the problems to last more than 12 hours.
Bibiana Bol is from Kansas City and was heading to a modeling job in Rockford. She had never taken the train before and was still stuck in Chicago on Friday morning.
"I'm always known to be punctual, so they'll be shaken not to be there because that's very important, it's the magazine of a friend I'm supposed to represent and she's a big show coming so for me, I feel bad because I feel that I dropped it, "she said.
The trains were able to move once again when the teams started manually operating the switches. The system was operational again around 8:45 pm
The cause of the problem is under consideration, but Amtrak plans to have additional crews on standby Friday just in case.
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