I’m looking for a particular accident report that I seem to remember was linked to on here. The accident was within the last three years or so and involved a local switching crew that parked their engines and a few cars on an industrial spur when they went off shift but left the switch to the main aligned with the spur, leading to an accident when the next train came by. The report had a discussion of how errors are more likely when a familiar sequence of operations is interuppted. (I would like to incorporate this info into my company’s training.)
That is the accident at Graniteville, SC on the Norfolk Southern. I don’t know if the NTSB has completed the final report yet, but there is probably a preliminary report on their website.
Also look at the Shepherd, Texas accident the following year.
Local tied down their train in the siding, got in the crew van and left…a few miles outside of town the conductor realized he didn’t have his switch lock keys…instead of radioing the dispatcher that he had left them hanging in the lock on the switch, they raced back to the siding to try and line and lock the switch before it caused a accident.
Missed by a few minutes, inbound UP found the local’s train the hard way.
Kurt is probably refering to Graniteville. While it wasn’t the only one, it was certainly the worst. There were a rash of similar accidents that year, resulting in FRA EO-24 and the Switch Awareness Form.