General Discussion

I agree with henry6. There are too many rules already, we don't need more.

As an example, we had a situtation in dark territory where a surfacing crew was giving up their track occupancy. A train was waiting at the red flag ready to go as soon as the equipment was in the clear and the foreman released them.

The foreman got the equipment into the side track, released the train and went into the depot.

You can see this coming can't you?

The next thing the foreman knows, the train is in emergency heading into the side track on top of his equipment. A fair amout of equipment damage but no injuries or derailment.

During the review, investigation and analysis of the incident there was a lot of discussion about writing a new rule. (The proposed rule eventually put in place was the one noted above by cptrainman) Aside from the expected discsipline being issued, this new rule was pretty much the only other action taken and everyone felt they had "solved the problem".

I argued against this new rule on the basis that there were already at least 6 other rules in place which dealt with the proper position of main line swithces which were ignored and adding this rule would not have changed this situation.

steve14:

I argued against this new rule on the basis that there were already at least 6 other rules in place which dealt with the proper position of main line swithces which were ignored and adding this rule would not have changed this situation.

gopherstate:

A similar accident happened on the DM&E in Brookings SD about 10 years ago.  A west bound train was diverted on to a siding that contained load covered hoppers of soybeans for South Dakota Soybean Processors.  The conductor was killed and the engineer was severely injured and lost one of his arms.  The switch lock was broken off by a local hoodlum, who then threw the switch and covered the reflectorized targets with a black garbage sack.  The young man was caught and sentenced to 15 years in the SD pen.  Not enough punishment in my opinion.

He wasn't a "local" hoodlum. He was the son of a California doctor who came to Brookings with some of his friends who were attending South Dakota State University. The scuttlebutt is the goober wasn't even working a job OR going to school, just living on daddy's money. He and his roomates lived 2 blocks from the tracks and apparently he got bored one night. He was seen at the scene the next day. Witnesses said he raised his arms and said to his buddies "Hey I can honestly say I wrecked a train".

Needless to say, they didn't have to bring in Sherlock Holmes to find him.

The word is that Daddy paid very large cash settlements to the engineer and the family of the conductor in order to shorten his little darling's prison term in some kind of deal. Since in South Dakota 15 years means 3 3/4 if you jump all the hoops and follow the rules, the little puke is probably out. I pray he is out of South Dakota and I pray for anyone who works on or lives near the tracks where he is now.

 If  I had a son that did that I would not be doing ANYTHING to get the IDIOT out of prison sooner. I would be helping the victims/families if I had the money.

Terrible.

  I am a little confused on why everyone is focusing on a signal here? The signal you see is for a remote switch activated by radio. The switch that was lined wrong is a hand thrown one just beyond that point.

  I havent worked the ground in that area since 2006,but ICE and BNSF got into a whizzing contest a few years back before 2005 over a switch in Muscatine being thrown.Dont ask me why they blamed BNSF but the rumor was they assumed it was a disgruntled BNSF guy who lined a switch in Muscatine. So they got rid of all their locks that we could use a key on and bought new ones and only gave keys to ICE guys.Now in locations where other railroads have or need access they have a bar that runs through the switch with latches on the end. One lock is ICe the other is pick the local railroad needing it.Now the locks are super tough,but the bars are not.

    Again no other news updates that I have seen. Spokyone have you seen anything I might have missed?Plus NTSB site wasnt helping me either.

Might this incident have anything in common with this one? What role might the switch position form have played in this?

Jim

spokyone:

The crew perished when a DM&E train diverted into a siding in Bettendorf,IA

http://www.dmerail.com/Customers/Customers-StateoftheRailroad.html

Ed Terbell, DM&E vice president of operations,

The line could be closed for weeks.

http://qconline.com/archives/qco/display.php?id=448683

http://qconline.com/archives/qco/display.php?id=464464

  Hi all had to bump this story back into the spotlight cause guess what? SOmeone left that same switch open again! No one was hurt nor was there any accident this time. It was however the same situation as last year.Clear the warrant and leave a switch open.

  Luckily the NB train saw it was open adn got them stopped in time.  Here is a link to the story in teh Quad City Times.

http://www.qctimes.com/news/local/article_1e5725ca-1b80-11df-89e5-001cc4c002e0.html

Unbelieveable! This is the only time that I have ever thought that somebody should be fired. If a crew is so stupid to repeat a situation where 2 people died, the whole crew should be fired. In my 13 years of railroading in "track warrant" territory I have never heard of this happening. 

Now, that said. There must be some operational issue here that is causing confusion. Maybe the issue is that one of the siding switches is radio operated and the other is not (I'm guessing. I don't know the territory). 

We have a radio operated switch here and it must be activated for the desired route every time you approach it. Perhaps the crew that released the track back to the dispatcher knows radio switches need to be activated, thus lined for the desired route,  but forgot that only one siding switch and not both are radio operated.  When I've had "work" authority over the radio operated switch in my territory, I didn't care about its position when I gave the track back to the dispatcher. I know each train must activate the switch for their desired route.

So it is either operational confusion and the company needs to make a operational change or that crew was stupid and should be fired.

  The siding switch is radio operated at both ends of the siding. Running south you come upon this switch first.It leads off to the left to the siding.Next switch leads to the right and inot the yard where BNSF uses to swap cars from its Clinton Job and Barstow job.

  This crew was BANNED from the railroad. So who knows whats going on to the crew. Previous incident conductor is gone we think for good, brakeman and engineer might be back in a year or so.But fired is an understatement. When it ws the two regular crews ( 427 and 428) we never had a problem.But when a cab driver states" They go hide in Alcoa and then give up their warrant and THEN go get the switch" Scares me alil bit.