N.J. Transit Cuts Overnight Split Shift

New Jersey Transit is eliminating an overnight split shift that may have contributed to a fatal train wreck last week.

As investigators tried to determine whether engineer fatigue led to the accident, the Federal Rail Administration said it, too, was studying whether similar shifts should be eliminated industrywide.

Two commuter trains collided Friday when engineer John DeCurtis ran a stop signal. DeCurtis was killed along with the engineer of the other train and a passenger.

NJ Transit has 62 split-shift assignments, three of them overnight. Under the new schedule, just one of the overnight split shifts - on the line where the collision happened - will be eliminated.

The split shift called for crews to work from 6:11 p.m. to 12:48 a.m., take a 4-1/2-hour break and then work from 5:30 a.m. until 7:28 a.m. DeCurtis took the 4-1/2-hour break as scheduled but was working past the end of his shift, making an extra round-trip run, at the time of the wreck.