Norfolk Southern fires crew that parked train in fatal accident
COLUMBIA, S.C. The three-man crew that failed to flip a switch that could have prevented last month’s deadly train crash in South Carolina has been fired by Norfolk Southern.
The crash near Graniteville on January 6th caused a toxic chlorine leak that killed nine people, injured hundreds and forced thousands to evacuate.
The crew members – all from the Columbia, South Carolina area – were not identified by the Norfolk-based rail company, but are named in lawsuits filed by survivors of the accident.
Investigators have tentatively determined that the crew parked the train on a spur rail and then failed to switch the tracks back to the main rail, which sent the oncoming train into the parked cars.
This is yet another example of both poor RR management and poor safety training of personnel. It is managements job to hire excellent people for a potentially dangerous job, and to train these people “constantly” on safety procedures, and “what if’s”. I see far too many employees on drugs, and God knows what else, in many accident cases that I have read about over the last 50 years. This tells me that personnel departments are not hiring the best people for the job, and do not watch these personnel for signs of drug abuse.
If you want the best, hire the best, if you want to save a few bucks, well here is your result. Try telling the families of those killed that as management, or employee, that you were doing your best…you were NOT…end of story.
All accidents are preventable, they are a result of human error in judgement, whether due to lack of training, impaired abilities due to drugs of any kind, or just plain ignorance or lack of care.
Shame, but that was a pretty negligent act. I only wonder is how do they assigned blame on all 3, and not just the one guy whos job it was to walk back and throw the switch? Not being able to read the report leading to the firing I am curious about the circumstances. By firing all three are they saying that the crew just threw the switch, climb back onto the cab and rolled onto the siding without leaving one crew member behind to realign the switch?
PS I also heard that the crew was eating lunch when the accident occured, any truth to this?
WHile there IS no room for error when publiuc safety is involved, I really don’t think this was a malicious act on the part of the crew. Of course, once the lawyers get a hold of it, these guys will be made out to be the next best thing to mass murderers. What is more likely is that one guy THOUGHT the other guy got the switch, and didn’t THINK to double check. Inexcusable, absolutely. Malicious? No way.
I haven’t heard about the lunch bit yet, but it has happened before. It is 12 noon, time to eat, union rules, stop all work.
I will give you a good example of this costs lives. Back in the 70’s, flight 109 from O’Hare in Chicago lost and engine on take-off, hundreds lost their lives in the air and on the ground. When the cause was finally found, the Airline decided to save money by not following the plane’s builder advice on how to remove the engine for maintenance. They decided to take the engine AND mount off the wing as one unit by having a fork lift hold up the engine while they removed the bolt. HOWEVER, it was shift change time when they had just removed the main large bolt, so the engine was being held up by the fork lift, which happened to have a small hydraulic leak. The heavy engine slowly came down on the cowl mount causing a fracture. When the plane took off, the fracture opened like a zipper and the engine was history along with over 200 people.
Accidents ARE preventable.
Logically there was no malice involved in this or the crew would have left the train on the mainline and split the scene.
All three were responsible for making sure the switch was set properly and the punishment, so far, seems to fit the circumstances.
I recall, a few years back, when an Air Force jet flew into the side of a mountain. When asked by reporters if it was a case of pilot error an Air Force representative replied that there was absolutely no pilot error involved; it was a case of the pilot suffering a temporary, yet fatal, loss of situational awareness. [xx(]
Please don’t be so quick to judge. It’s possible for experienced old timers to make horrific errors. There have been documented train and airline crashes where seasoned, reputable employees were at fault. Lack of communication, fatigue, or being distracted having played roles in some of these accidents. I spent 15 years in a transit authority and remember well that quality people, as well as poorly qualified people were involved in “unexcusable” accidents.
All the factors must be examined before drawing a conclusion on the persons involved.
When accidents take lives, death doesn’t care the reason. Accidents ARE preventable. If you are too tired and overworked, who is at fault here? Management and the employee is at fault. This is not meant to prejudge anyone. We don’t have all the facts yet. But all three were fired right away weren’t they!! They were not placed on paid or unpaid leave, they were fired right away. So we know from that fact that they didn’t do their job. When lives are lost, there are no excuses. I don’t care how good the employees might have been, when others lives depend upon you, you had better stay alert or get another job, there is no room for mistakes, end of story.
Well the first response smacks of a standard union response, “Management and lack of training”. As a manager I’d rather have a root canal a day than try to change union members who immediately cry foul when they screw up. This is blatant on their part and they should have been fired immediately.
ndbprr…believe me, I am no supporter of unions, I have been in unions in my early years of working, and in management the latter years. I have worked for both union companies and non union. I much prefer NON union, even as a worker.
My response was a balanced response, not smaking of management at all,even though it might read that way at first glance. Managements job is to seek out the best employees for the job, train them, keep them trained in the latest technologies ( this is ongoing, it is not a one shot deal that last a lifetime), and most importantly…SAFETY training.
The employees job is to adhere to the rules of safety at all times in the performance of their jobs, bring any safety hazard, potential or otherwise, to managements attention immediately, and to keep themselves in condition to do their jobs properly.
Something was obviously neglected that fatal day, we can only speculate what that was until the facts are made known.
Perhaps when the investigation is completed there will be some suggestions that may prevent future accidents like this. Perhaps some sort of alarm system that would sense the direction of a thrown switch and the placement of nearby trains. It is only if we learn from accidents and work to prevent future accidents that anything positive can come from them.
Sounds like the railroads need to use the setup I have on my layout. There are indicator lights to show the train which way the switch is thrown. Got tired of one train running into another just because the switch was the wrong way.
I know hindsight is 20/20 and suggestions are not always practical, but as a kid living in NYC, NH, and Pennsy territory (later Penn Central) I remember seeing “MANY” dwarf signals next to switches. It was neat seeing them change after hearing the loud “clacking” of a switch, apparently being thrown automatically from some distant CTC tower.
If I’m not mistaken, dwarfs were or still are used to indicated a switch’s position in some areas. It may or may not have helped in this preventable disaster. However, the #1 complaint from railroad managements is that signals are very expensive to maintain.
Sad to say, in this case it would have been far cheaper!
Well, even is there was a dwarf signal at the switch, I don’t think it would have made much difference, unless the oncomign train was moving very slowly. The time difference between when the crew realized they switch was lined incorrectly wouldn’t have been all that much.
If there this stretch of track was signalled (is it? or is it dark territory?), then the preceeding block signals should have displayed some sort of restricting signal if the switch was lined for the siding. There’s a lot we don’t know yet, so anything said at this point is pure speculation.
Well said about the lack of information we have on this. I do hope that something is learned from this and that we take that knowledge to increase safety as to reduce the chance of future accidents.
On the other hand, I think that the railroads when you figure in the ton miles travelled each year have an excellent safety record (hopefully someone will be able to either confirm or deny this). It just that when there is an accident involving a train, the resulting damage - to persons and property is often steep. While it will never become perfect, hopefully we will always keep trying to reach that level.
Dave you bring upa good point. Everyday I bet there a hundreds of thousands of miles racked by trains all over the country. Have to tip your hat to the saftey issue. of course, when you have 4 300.000 pound engines pulling atrain with 10,000 tons , even a “fenderbender” by a RR standard is going to make a mess and be on the news
I know this is an old post, however, in my Norfolk Southern research I ran across this NTSB report on the accident, I found it to be very interesting reading. The initial report is in PDF format and is 68 pages long.
Yewbetcha! Every one of us makes mistakes. Some have great consequences, some are immediately forgotten for the reason that we made the mistake in the first place…something else was more salient in our attention.
Too bad for all concerned in this regrettable incident. I am sure the three crew members meant no harm, but as a team, they succumbed to some sort of group-think during the hour before it happened.
As a psychologist, with specialty in social psychology, I know that individuals can influence how a larger group behaves over time. Charisma is a play. But the group can develop its own culture and impetus, and that can have grave consequences in future successes and failures relative to outside factors and situations. Unionism can have its own impact, and the rules of disengaging from one’s job for a mandatory meal may or may not have been the contributing factor. When pilots make fatal errors, it is almost never associated with union rules or with meals. They just miss something obvious…sort of like forgetting to add the sugar to the cookie batter. Excrement happens.
I agree that individual accidents are usually preventable. But the elimination of all accidents is not possible. That is something I learned the hard way as a helicopter pilot and an aircraft maintenance chief for 3 helicopters and 5 C-130s (and 170 mechanics and air crew). I don’t care how well every single member of the organization preaches and believes in safety and following the rules, accidents will still happen from time to time. And that is because the real world does not follow man’s rules, does not pay attention to man’s rules, and even creates conflict between man-made rules.
Already mentioned in this case was the possible conflict between the work shift rules and the safety rules. Every day, folks make judgements about which rule applies in a given situation, or what to do when no rules apply. Sometimes, no matter how good the training, management, and intentions, those judgements will be in error. I know, I kept several guardian angels fully occupied overcoming my mistakes. Communications between crew members breaks down because human beings are not mind readers (more than likely what happened in this case) and we erroneously assume we know what the other person is thinking and is going to do.
If you don’t believe any of this, think about normal every day driving on busy highways. Every minute you are assuming what the other drivers’ intentions are. And regardless of how good a driver you are, misreading the other drivers’ intentions has a chance of landing you in an accident. You can minimize your personal likelihood of being in a car accident by driving defensively and maintaining your car properly, or eliminate it all together by not driving at all. But you cannot eliminate all road accidents.
In this case, the initial punishment has been rendered, and I’m sure more will follow. And the crew members get to live with the knowledge that their mistakes killed other i