Article now in archives and you have to be subscriber to view it. Drat. Was about UP wreck in Cleveland, Texas on Sept. 16. [ October 05, 2005, 02:40 PM: Message edited by: r_i_straw ]
The employee who died was a fellow Locomotive engineer of my Dad. He was a good man. Too bad UP can't run trains. What ashame.
Actually people need to do their job. Like line the switch or tell the next crew that its not lined. Thats the real reason behind most of the wrecks down in Texas, people this industry must take care of bussiness or some one could die. Sorry for the rambling.
Railroading is serious business and often dangerous unless procedures developed over years of experience are followed. As much as we love trains we tend to forget or overlook the complexity of moving 1000's of tons of materials over large distances. Until the final report is issued it is only speculation to what the real cause is. This could be human error or could be an engineering issue in terms of infrastructure.
I don't know if the offical report has been released to the public, but heres what happen staight from one of the crew members who jumped off the trian sitting in the siding. That night the local had backed into the siding to wait for a relief crew. But they never lined the switch back to the mainline. The relief crew showed up and boarded the train and waited for the freight goin the other direction. As the mainline freight apporached the siding and saw the switch was lined wrong, they had no time to stop. The crew of the train in the siding saw it comin at the last second and the ploit and the conductor jumped out the front and the engineer tried to get out the back but did not make it before the train hit. The crew on the mainline freight had a saftey cab and had minor injuries. Now this brings up two things: Crew saftey (ie: loco cabs) doin your job (ie: double check your work and never assume) Now I'm not tryin to bash or blame anyone or railroad, but this is real life, Mistakes can be deadly when people don't do their job. This accident should have never happened. Ok, now i'm done done rambling. Sorry if I get any of the infomation about the accdent wrong this came straight from the phone to here.
the reason that the other train was coming was that this happened in TWC - Track Warrant territory and the crew on the train in the siding called the dispatcher and released the track warrant, which they should not have done until the switch was lined for main line movement. Then the train came down the main and like the other one said just couldnt stop, just had to add it happened in TWC.
Marshall: What is a ploit? Why would three people be on a train? Or is it three on a switcher type train? Thanks for the info on this.
Flash- I think he mis-spelled "pilot." Which means the crew he was guiding, was not familiar with operating in this territory. Boxcab E50
I was under the impression that Track Warrant territory is "dark" with no signals. A train is given "Track and Time" between two mile posts until they give it back to the dispatcher to issue to someone else. Is this not correct?
Thanks, BCE50. Understand the pilot. Then the next question is, if Russell is correct, what is "dark." Does that just mean no signals, or something else, too? I think track warrants imply that there is some communication with a dispatcher or someone in charge who is not on the train. A step further back is "On Sheet" (OS) where you have to sign a log at every station you pass. Other trains have to stop and look at the log at each station to see who is ahead of them or who has not passed there yet. Having a station master there saved a lot of time but added another person. You can see how labor intensive all this was and how it slowed things down. There is a lot of chance for error. Additionally, I can see a lot of job satisfaction if such a system worked smoothly.
Track warrant territory can be "dark" or non-signaled territory. It can also be in "ABS" block system territory. ABS is an Automatic Block Signal system. It is an automatic signal system designed to keep the trains apart. It senses train movements and sets up the system accordingly. It cannot decide who goes down what track at what time. The dispatcher, who has no physical control over the switches or signal indications, organizes train movements by issueing track warrants telling specific trains and crews where they are allowed to travel. It is up to the train crew to abide by both the track warrant limits and the signal indications in ABS territory.
If its dark territory,I can see this. I'm having a hard time comprehending that in this day & age there's still this primitive way to run trains on a class 1 mainline. Up here,they come up with all kinds of restictive systems.All the rails are wired.The dispatchers know our every move & every swiitch position.It's pretty cool to watch a train going across the "board".
Well this line is called " the Rabit" which is an ex-SP/SSW line between Houston, TX and Shreveport, LA. It does have signals, but there are sections that do not have them. These accidents with switches lined wrong happen more than you think on this line. There are many close calls. There even used to be a section where the trains had no radio contact with the dispatcher years ago.Now with the UP in control they mostly run trains in one direction, with the exception of a few locals and the A&NR.
Track warrants and train orders were, and are handled by dispatchers. Issued either via the authority of a Chief Train Dispatcher, or Division Superintendent. Depends on the individual RR. A bunch of stuff all mixed into one. "OS" was done by the agent/operator/telegrapher/leverman. Not train crew. Thus the dispatcher had proof positive of when a train arrived and departed any specific manned station. You may be confusing into this, use of the Form 31 order, and/or the dispatcher by rule requiring a train to stop and "register." "Stationmaster" is also not a term used in this case. A person of such title is only found at the large passenger locations. Such as a union station. Where they'd oversee daily station operations, clerks, and passenger services. Ticket sales, a restaurant, etc. They were not involved in the timetable/train order/dispatching side which controlled train movement. That was handled by a seperately assigned dispatcher, not necessarily on the premises, and their agent/operator/telegrapher/leverman. More often, rather than a "stationmaster" (term used a lot by fans), the person in charge was the Passenger Agent. The might also be a Freight Agent staffed there. (Different from the Agent in operations.) Boxcab E50
