Apparently the Virginia Railway Express had a locomotive roll out of a repair facility and onto CSX tracks last month. It happened on September 26 about 8:45 pm but is just now making it to the news when a Fredericksburg, VA paper found out yesterday and it is in the Washington Post this morning. Apparently rail workers were changing the brakes on it and did not do anything to keep it from moving. It rolled out of the yard (one guy thought about trying to jump on, but thought better of it) and took off, reportedly getting up to 40 mph before it reached and incline and slowed down so a CSX worker could climbed on and stop it. They then returned it to the yard. It went 7 miles before it could stop. The two employees who let the locomotive get away are now on leave pending the result of the investigation. VRE stops operating at 8, and CSX was aware of the situation and supposedly no trains were operating near there at the time.
Wow…
Someone wasn’t paying attention… My question is: Was the locomotive running at the time, or shut down? Shouldn’t it have been shutdown, and, perhaps a derail put on the rail to guard against the potential of rolling away? Or, is there some other way to secure a locomotive while work is being performed? Any speculation out there, anyone?
One shudders to think what could have happened had there been a train in the area.
According to the story the contractors “skipped” some of the safety procedures to make sure it would not go anywhere when they started working on the locomotive, changing the brake shoes. The locomotive was not running. It just basically coasted down a slight incline and kept on going. The story says the CSX personnel just got on when it reached an incline, got it stopped, started it and the took it back. FRA was notified of the incident. According to the story it ran through 2 grade crossings. Luckily the crossing signals did activate.
This would also be a good example to give to people who walk down the tracks and say they will hear the train coming!