NY Times Article on the Union Pacific

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There is a very damning article about the UP and its ethics and approach to public responsibility in the July 11th New York Times. For example:

"DEATH ON THE TRACKS
Articles in this series will examine the conduct of America’s freight railroads in grade-crossing and other accidents, as well as the agencies that regulate the railway industry.

Published: July 11, 2004
Jenny Nordberg contributed reporting for this article. Tom Torok contributed data analysis and reporting. Eric Koli contributed reporting from San Francisco.


Att 5:45 p.m., with the autumn sun dipping toward the horizon, Blas Lopez, a father of four young children, drove his truck loaded with potatoes bound for market onto a railroad crossing in south-central Washington State. In an instant, a 4,700-ton Union Pacific train rammed Mr. Lopez's truck with the force of an explosion, ripping apart his body.

Union Pacific responded as most railroads do after fatal crossing accidents: It blamed the victim, Mr. Lopez, not itself.

What Union Pacific did not say was that the warning signal at the crossing contained parts that the manufacturer had said, 12 years earlier, should be replaced "as soon as possible" because they might be defective. After a witness to the accident said the signal appeared to have malfunctioned, a lawyer for Mr. Lopez's family arranged with Union Pacific in October 2001 to inspect the signal.

But a railroad manager beat the lawyer there by several hours. In the predawn darkness, the manager secretly swapped the suspect parts for newer ones. The cover-up was not discovered until weeks later, when the Lopezes' lawyer noticed that the serial numbers on the parts did not match the railroad's records.

Union Pacific's conduct is a stark example of how some railroads, even as they blame motorists, repeatedly sidestep their own responsibility in grade-crossing fatalities. Their actions range from destroying, mishandling or simply losing evidence to not reporting the crashes properly in the first place, a seven-month investigation by The New York Times has found.

Union Pacific stands out. In one recent 18-month period, seven federal and state courts imposed sanctions on Union Pacific, the nation's biggest railroad, for destroying or failing to preserve evidence in crossing accidents, and an eighth court ordered a case retried. One sanction has since been overturned on appeal........."