Schu’s railroad wake-up call l

The US Department of Transportation is sleeping on the job by not testing train operators for sleep apnea, Sen. Chuck Schumer charged Sunday.

The DOT backed out of an Obama-era plan that would have made testing for the sleeping disorder mandatory for train operators.

“I’m renewing my call on DOT to re- verse their very, very dumb decision not to have testing of engineers for sleep apnea,” Schumer said at a press conference in Grand Central Terminal, noting that testing was a “no-brainer.”

At their Feb. 6 meeting, the National Transportation Safety Board found that regular testing for the disorder would have prevented a deadly 2016 NJ Transit crash in Hoboken and a Long Issland Rail Road wreck at Atlantic c Terminal in Brooklyn in January y 2017. In both incidents, the board ard found that the train engineers were suffering from obstructive sleepep ap-apnea and had passed out as they entered the train terminals.