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Union Pacific freight collide in Oklahoma, three missing
Again another tragic loss of life for more railroaders. As for the equipment that’s secondary.
So how much longer will it be ? Before the railroads and transportation agencies implement something to prevent these kind of incidents ?
Having worked extensively in that area I think of this region as fairly wide open and plenty of visibility. It will be interesting to learn how it happened,
Having run down 54 a bunch of times chasing trains I am not surprised they were doing 68 mph. They really roll and will commonly pass you if traffic is bad.
Very sorry for the families and the crews.
PTC probably would have prevented this accident. Is this section of track under train orders and not CTC?
My sympathy goes out to the families of the crew members killed in the collision.
On that head-on collision in OK, sounds like the one crew was asleep.
Ug. We covered this stretch on the Southwest Explorer private car special in May. Again, sympathies to the families. Let’s get PTC installed ASAP.
When you have Teamsters ‘asleep at the wheel’, PTC won’t help. The blame lies in Omaha, methinks.
ive said this for severial years now, that locomotives should still be run long hood foward. I beleave that while it doesnt help prevent collisions it does give the crew a better chance to survive the crash. Although im not sure it would have helped much in a crash of this speed.
I think this is TWC territory and is signaled. One would have to
presume that at least one crew was asleep. This is not CCS or ATC territory but the locomotives surely had alerters. Crews should NOT be able to override or reset safety devices until the train is stopped.
Time and the investigation will give us a good idea of what happened. Ive worked for BNSF for 33 years. Much of it nights and it can be a true battle to stay awake and alert.
As for Mr. Hays comments on teamsters at the wheel and blaming Obama. Truly one of your more ignorant statements. If you believe a train crew working at minimum wage would do any better, you are a damned and heartless fool.
Mr. Freadhoff:
Mr. Hays did not comment on Obama.
He commented on Omaha –
Omaha, Nebraska –
that is, the headquarters of the Union Pacific Railroad.
Still, though, his remark about wheels and sleeping teamsters is rather squirrely.
Who was sleeping at the wheel this time? Clear view for miles and they could not see each other!? Who knows…maybe drugs or booze played a role. Either way, it was paid for with their lives. The worst part about it was as usual, this could have been avoided.
Prayers to the family of the lost crew-members.
It is obvious that a serious mistake was made and an investigation by the UP and by the FRA/NTSB will doubtless pinpoint the factors resulting in this most serious accident. We should not be too hasty in trying to decide what the causes were, as that will be revealed in about a year.
In the meantime, my condolences to the families of the deceased. What a sad blemish on the UPRR also during its 150th year of service to the nation.
Being a conductor for 26 years. Something STINKS here. What happend to radio communication? What was the Dispatcher doing? Someone had to know these two trains were there. And a note to WILLIAM D HAYS from Montana, What the hell is the TEAMSTERS got to do with this wreck! Been in a union for 26 years. Thoughts and prayers to the family and coworkers.
This ex-Rock Isalnd line is still mostly track warrant dispatched, so obviously a communications error.
Also, the crew change points are Dalhart, TX and Pratt, KS, so the eastbound crew most likely hadn’t been on duty for very long as Dalhart is about 40 miles west of the wreck site, but Pratt is 180 miles to the east, so the westbound crew had probablly been on duty for most of the night, seeing as the wreck happened about 10:30 am.
Our Prayers go out to the families of the missing crewmembers!
How is track authority granted on this line segment?
I Viewed this article from AP on the Roadrunner.com(Time Warner Cable) National News section of the Home page,http://www.rr.com/news/topic/article/rr/55255105/70688392/3_missing_after_trains_collide_in_rural_Oklahoma
The Statement from the truck Driver shown here who was pacing one of the trains said that neither lead Locomotive was flashing its lights or sounding its horn before the collision.
How could two engineers not see each other and not try to warn the other?, also how could two trains be on the sane track at the same time in a way that leads to a Head on Collision?
How could dispatch not be aware of this and have the Inferior train ordered to take a siding to await the meet with the Superior Train to let it pass before proceeding on a single track line like that?
I think that someone else was asleep at the switch other than one of the engineers,unless one of them was over his hours of operation time limit or was distracted in some way or that some how orders didn’t get to one or both of the train crews that both were going to be on that same stretch of single track in an oncoming direction that would lead to a collision and for one of them to take one the sidings prior to being on the track at the same.
The only other way for this to happen was a chain of events that led to both trains being on that same track at the same time such as miscommunications between Dispatch and the Train crews and orders not being double checked and confirmed,one train running ahead or behind schedule or missing the siding or being too long for the siding,or two different dispatchers issuing orders for the two trains and not checking to see if another train was schedule to be on that same route at the same time as the train they were scheduling.
Anyway you look at it, this was preventable but we will have to wait for the results of the investigation and the data from the “Black Boxes” of the Locomotives to get the whole picture of what happened
William Hauptman wrote a book called “The Storm Season” about train crews in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles. It was fiction, but it had a story about a train wreck somewhat similar to this (except the reasons for the train crew going missing were less tragic than this terrible collision in real life). It’s spooky how predictive the novel was.
this is old Rock Island track and it is equiped with signals and is track warrant control with segments of CTC. UP is working on upgrading this line to ctc and PTC but even PTC will not prevent something like this if the dispatcher or weather effects the operation.