A rail safety system gone badly off track

By Andrea Estes Globe Staff April 14, 2018

Dean Walker’s license has been suspended 39 times for everything from driving to endanger to refusing a breathalyzer test. He’s been caught speeding 16 times and convicted of drunken driving twice. ... To fellow motorists, he’s a hazard. ... To the Registry of Motor Vehicles, he’s a chronic offender. ... But to Keolis, the MBTA’s commuter rail operator, Walker is something else entirely — an engineer. ... Despite his appalling driving history, Walker is entrusted with operating six-car trains, at speeds averaging 60 miles per hour, carrying hundreds of commuters to and from the city. ... Robert Ronquillo III, son of the chief justice of the Boston Municipal Court, was also penalized multiple times for safety violations on the job.

And he has plenty of company among his peers. About 110 commuter rail engineers, more than half of them, have driving records that experts described as poor considering the sensitive line of work they’re in — at least three infractions such as speeding, causing accidents, and failing to stop. ... Nearly 50 engineers have had their driver’s licenses suspended — 44 of them more than once, according to Registry of Motor Vehicle records reviewed by the Globe.

The engineers’ supervisors don’t set much of an example, either. Manager of engineer training Shawn Monahan, who teaches aspiring engineers what they need to know before they can operate a train, has received 11 speeding tickets and caused two accidents. ... Keolis’s head engineer, Mark Neverett, has 13 speeding tickets, eight accidents, and an operating under the influence on his driving record, though he’s had no recorded offenses since 2010.

The records obtained by the Globe, which span decades, raise serious concerns about safety on the commuter rail, experts say. Train operators aren’t required to have a driver’s license, and driving a 144-ton locomotive on fixed tracks is a very different discipline than driving a car. But a history of recklessness on the roads makes it much more likely someone will be reckless on the rails, they say.
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Globe correspondent Matt Stout contributed to this report. Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea.estes@globe.com.