Daily News from New York, New York • 38

DAILY NEWS, TUESDAY, AUGUST 26, 1969 Our Staggering Subways elective 38 ft i i equipment, speed-up in rainimig jJr 6 Sink safe edto factors June 2, 1969: IRT Lexington Ave. Line six persons injured as the result of a coupling failure. June 22, 1969: HMD Line 24 persons injured in panic resulting from fire caused by short circuit. "More and more, you're really faking your life into your hands when you get on a subway in this town." a TA motormen MO i'sny MfMg- 'm mmmmm mm '--cm 1 v. May 16, 1969: IRT Broadway Line 3 I injured in fire.

(Continued from pagm 3) with passengers on board, while the remaining: 32 occurred in yards. Most motormen and conductors Interviewed seem to an-p that both minor accidents and near-misses have been on a sharp rise in the subway system in recent months. Many i the specific complaints seem to center r.mml two general areas of alleged deficiency: insufficiently trained personnel, and defective or poorly maintained iiiiprurnt. Some of the faults are readily S'lmi't'-d the Transit Authority; others are denied V' lielllTit 'y. The SSA felt so strongly about six specific complaints it requested and received a conference rn'-etinir wiih the Lindsay Administration's transportation chieftain, Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff, a Iniinis! ra' of the Transportation Administration.

The points included these allegations: That the TA has failed to develop any adequate evacuation plan to be used In case of fire, flood iit other emergency in tunnels or platform areas, and that it has failed to provide such simple evacuation equipment as planks, ladders and lanterns. That the TA has permitted "improperly trained" nuitoniien to operate trains, in some cases men who have received only "two, three or four months of training in the yards" instead of the previous minimum of 12 months. That the TA has failed to install adequate communications systems and equipment to permit motor-men r.nd conductors to stay in contact with transit employes at the station and in the central offices. That the TA has provided Insufficient supervisory personnel "at certain vital and sensitive points of this transportation facility," primarily in the areas of dispatching trains and inspecting switches and rolling stock. (It should be noted here that any Increase in supervisory personnel would fatten the membership lists of the SSA.) And that the TA has permitted the continued of defective trains because of the lack of maintenance personnel and the unavailability of certain replacement parts.

The SSA followed up Its conference by sending letters to both Sidamon-Eristoff and City Council President Francis X. Smith, demanding action to correct the allegedly dangerous conditions and practices. The TA denies flatly that its motormen are "insufficiently trained," but admits that manpower shortens have caused the training period to be trimmed. "Because of the need to accelerate qualification of motormen, we have had to reduce the time they spend training i't yards," a spokesman for the TA said. "Usually, the men spend at least three months in yard training although we would prefer it to be five months." To the other points, the TA Issues a blanket denial.

It claims that all employes are given evacuation instruction in their regular training; it says that it has fully trained supervisory personnel at all times sufficient to maintain safety standards; it says that it has sufficient equipment, of sufficient quality, to ensure a totally safe operation. The TA spokesman dismissed the complaints by Why the shortage? 'I he Transit Authority says that its contract with the Transport Workers Union which took effect Jan. 1, 1968 and permitted retirement at half pay at age 50 for employes with 20 years of tenure, caused a great exodus nmong the more than 29,000 hourly paid workers in the past fiscal year. The retirement figures: Fiscal Year Retirements 196S-1969 3,928 1967-1968 415 "As you can see, said Leonard Ingalls, TA director of public information, "our 1969 retirements rose sharply. And complicating this even further is the fact that we are experiencing extreme difficulty in filling our vacan-4 cies It's tough to get any, employes, let lone good ones." The Hot Underground How hot are the subways? A survey taken during yesterday's evening rush hour showed that temperatures in cars and stations ran nearly 10 above the outside temperatures.

Readings of 97 degrees were obtained at the Lexington Ave. IRT'a 14th St. station, on a Lexington Ave. train and on a Flushing Line train from Times Square to Grand Central Terminal. The outside temperature at the time was 90 degrees.

Other temperatures recorded on a two-hour tour of the IRT, the IND and the B31T ranged from 96 degrees on a train to 78 degrees in another car with air conditioning but no lights. thousands of passengers in the stifling heat of the subway tunnels. Hundreds of riders responded by leaving their trains and walking along the tracks in search of exits. One man, later identified as 62-year-old Ralph Martinez Cruz, was electrocuted when he fell from a catwalk and contacted the third rail. The TA held hearings, and found that many passengers disregarded instructions "to stay on the trains and remain patient." "Passengers too often are taking situations into their own hands," said William J.

Ronan, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, parent organization of the TA. "They are panicking, they are getting out of the trains and walking on the tracks, trying to look out for themselves. But this is extremely dangerous. "I have directed the Transit Authority to post ftens i Spanish and English in all cars, warning of the dangers of leaving equipment unless they are advised or guided by Transit Authority personnel or police." In the final analysis, however, the TA can point with pride to its ultimate evidence its safety record. The record shows that if passengers follow the rules, the system will not endanger them.

"We have a fail-safe system here, and that's the best insurance of all against injuries." said Harold J. McLaughlin, assistant general superintendent of the TA's Rapid Transit Operations Division. "Every part of our system is designed with safety first and foremost In mind. Our record proves the system works." aylng that the union la more interested in raising salaries than in increasing safety. Other possible danger areas were cited by motor-men and conductors interviewed.

The most common complaints involved the newer cars on the system. The first of the complaints is that the newest air-conditioned cars with radically slanted ends, used on the IND line, are not compatible with the older cars with their flat ends. "These cars were not made to match the older cars there are no gates, no safety chains, no pantographs, no nothing," said one motorman. "Anybody walking between cars has nothing to keep him from falling on the tracks." In such cases, the motorman said, conductors have been instructed to keep the storm doors (the doors between cars) lacked and this brings up a secondary hazard, they say. "In an air-conditioned car, 75 of the air is recirculated, only 25 is fresh air from the outside," a conductor said.

"Now if there is ever a case of a power failure or a smoke condition, and the conductor has to throw his power switch off, you're going to have people trapped like in a submarine. "They're trapped, stuck in there, and the people will break the car to pieces to get out of there. It happened out on the Brighton line, two months ago, and the passengers broke two cars up on us," he said. The motorman referred to the June 22 panic aboard a smoke filled IND train enroute from Coney Island to the Bronx on the BMT elevated route near the Neck Road station. Twenty four persons were injured smashing windows, forcing doors and leaping to the tracks in a wild but unnecessary scramble to safety.

A minor and brief short circuit caused the smoke condition. In answer, the TA says that it has completed making the necessary adjustments to nearly all of the new cars, so that there are gates and chains which allow any car, new or old, to be connected with any other car on the system. This eliminates not only the danger of passengers falling to the tracks, but also the need to lock the storm doors. Finally, everyone is agreed that the area of greatest potential danger is the behavior of the passengers themselves, and their failures at times to obey instructions. In the last major subway problem involving a fatality, passenger behavior was blamed as the cause.

The occasion was last July 18, when a thunder- Storm floe led a Section, of the Pelham Bay line in the; king tip trains Into Manhattan trapping,.