CTA announces change in rail operations scheduling policy

Jordan Harrison, Assistant Camups Editor

The Chicago Transit Authority announced Friday new scheduling policies for rail operators in response to a March 24 crash at the O’Hare Blue Line station.

“Safety is our highest priority at the CTA,” said CTA president Forrest Claypool in a news release. “Any time an incident like this occurs, we take very seriously the responsibility of thoroughly reviewing all aspects of what happened — including longstanding policies and practices. In this instance, there were changes we could make that are appropriate and that further maximize safety for our customers and for our employees.”

The policy changes include increasing minimum rest time between rail operator shifts from eight hours to 10 hours, requiring all rail operations workers to take off at least one day in any seven-day period, limiting the number of weekly hours spent operating a train to 32 hours for first-year operators and limiting “actual train-operations duty” to 12 hours in a 14-hour period.

The changes followed a derailment at the O’Hare station that injured more than 30 people.

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