Track workers at the MBTA again had to get out of the way of a moving train that came dangerously close to them, this time on March 1, the agency reported Thursday, marking the latest in a long series of “near-miss” incidents on the subway system.
Workers had to duck into the wall cut-outs of the Orange Line’s subway tunnel near Tufts Medical Center Station when a train moved past the flagger and into their work zone at around 10:20 a.m., deputy chief safety officer Nancy Prominski told the agency’s board safety subcommittee members. MBTA spokesperson Joe Pesaturo said one flagger and four track workers doing rail greasing and inspections were involved in the incident.
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The investigation is ongoing, Prominski said, but so far it appears to have been a procedural violation by the train operator. The agency is reviewing its procedure for performing track work during service hours using flaggers and will train its workers on the new process when it’s finalized, Prominski said.
This is not the first time the T has planned to review, change, and retrain its workers in recent months in an effort to prevent these kinds of safety incidents.
In December, Tim Lesniak, the MBTA’s chief safety officer, told the agency’s board of directors that the Operations Control Center was bringing in experts to review its procedures after an incident in November in which T workers reenergized the electrified third rail while a welding truck and its driver were still on the Orange Line tracks.
The T has faced repeated warnings from federal regulators about near-misses.
In September, the Federal Transit Administration cited what it called four near-misses on T subway tracks between Aug. 10 and Sept. 6, and warned “a combination of unsafe conditions and practices exist such that there is a substantial risk of serious injury or death of a worker.”
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The federal agency instructed the T to retrain dispatchers and supervisors in its Operations Control Center and imposed restrictions on how the T can do track work.
That series of close calls last summer was similar to a spate of at least five reported near-misses last March and April. Back then, the Federal Transit Administration also issued the same warnings about worker safety and ordered the T to bolster workplace procedures for operators, flaggers, track workers, and dispatchers.
The most recent reported incident on March 1 on the Orange Line happened during regular service hours when the T was attempting to perform work between trains with minimal disruption to riders.
MBTA general manager Phillip Eng said the incident shows that workers feel more comfortable reporting near-misses and is a sign of a stronger safety culture at the agency.
“I think what we’re seeing is a cultural shift in our organization where employees are seeing that by reporting things management is taking a much more hands-on approach to solving these problems sooner,” he said. “If they raise things up, management is taking it seriously.”
Eng also gave board members an update on the derailment that happened on the Green Line on Saturday following an 18-day shut down of much of the line for track repairs. The T shut down the Green Line between Babcock Street and Copley stations for most of the day Saturday, again diverting riders to shuttle buses.
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Under Eng’s leadership, since November, the T has been steadily removing slow zones from the subway system, although progress stalled last month.
Eng said the Green Line derailment remains under investigation and is focused on the Type 8 Green Line train itself. The train’s center wheels came off the tracks during the train’s second trip over the area that day, he said.
The track work, he said, was “done properly.”
Taylor Dolven can be reached at taylor.dolven@globe.com. Follow her @taydolven.