SMART Union
AMARILLO, Texas (AP) – A Texas Panhandle collision involving three freight trains has left four BNSF Railway crewmembers hurt – two critically – and derailed up to 30 cars.
The Department of Public Safety says the accident happened before dawn Wednesday just east of Amarillo.
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MINERAL SPRINGS, N.C. — CSX conductor Phillip E. Crawford Jr., 33, and locomotive engineer James Gregory Hadden, 36, were killed early May 24 in a rear-end collision here involving two CSX freight trains, according to news reports. Mineral Springs is some 30 miles south of Charlotte.
Crawford was a member of UTU Local 970, Abbeville, S.C. He signed on with CSX in October 2005.
Two crew members on the lead train, which was hit from the rear, suffered minor injuries, reported the Charlotte Observer.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Railroad Administration are investigating the North Carolina train collision, and a member of the UTU Transportation Safety Team is assisting the NTSB.
A CSX spokesperson told the Associated Press that the rear-end collision occurred on northbound tracks and involved one train enroute to Hamlet, N.C., from New Orleans, and another enroute to Charlotte from southern Georgia. Each train was pulled by two locomotives; one pulling nine freight cars, and the other 12, said CSX.
In Ft. Worth, a BNSF switch foreman and UTU Local 564 member, Paul Young, 28, with almost seven years’ service, lost both legs and an arm after being hit by a train in BNSF’s Alliance Terminal of May 23. Young, a resident of Haslet, Texas, reportedly was performing a gravity switch at an ethanol plant at the time of the accident.
GILA BEND, Ariz. — A westbound Union Pacific freight train hit a U.S. Border Patrol SUV here May 12 as two Border Patrol agents, reportedly chasing suspected undocumented immigrants, suddenly entered an unmarked private crossing in their unmarked SUV as the train approached.
Both Border Patrol agents were killed in the collision, which occurred about 80 miles from the Mexican border.
News reports say the train’s crew members saw the SUV driving parallel to the tracks “when the unmarked SUV suddenly turned south into the crossing.” The engineer reportedly blew his horn prior to the crash, trying to get the SUV driver’s attention.
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department said the three-locomotive, 75-car UP train, enroute to Yuma, was traveling about 62 mph when it struck the SUV, pushing it about one-mile down the tracks.
News reports say sheriff’s deputies later arrested a group of eight suspected undocumented immigrants traveling on foot near the scene of the accident. They reportedly were carrying 315 pounds of marijuana.
RED OAK, Iowa — A BNSF conductor and an engineer were killed in a rear-end train accident near here Sunday morning, April 17.
Red Oak is southeast of Council Bluffs and is part of BNSF’s Creston subdivision, which has centralized traffic control, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.
Killed were conductor and UTU Local 199 (Creston, Iowa) Vice Local Chairperson Patricia Hyatt, and engineer Tom Anderson, both age 48. Hyatt, a resident of Creston, hired on with BNSF in March 2005. Anderson was president of BLET Division 642.
A BNSF spokesperson was quoted in news reports that an eastbound freight train pulling 130 loaded coal hoppers collided with the rear of a second BNSF train pulling 34 cars of railroad maintenance equipment. The accident occurred around 7 a.m, Central Daylight Time.
Reports say 10 of the cars in the lead train, two locomotives of the three-locomotive coal train and the two locomotives of the maintenance train derailed.
Witnesses to the accident told the Des Moines Register newspaper that the lead locomotive of the coal train was engulfed in fire, which spread to at least one of the coal cars.
There were no reported injuries of the two-person crew of the maintenance train.
The tracks on which the accident occurred are used by Amtrak’s California Zephyr as well as 40 freight trains daily, according to the BNSF spokesperson. Reportedly, the line linking Galesburg, Ill., and Omaha will be closed indefinitely, with trains rerouted to other track.
The FRA and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the accident, and a member of the UTU Transportation Safety Team is assisting the NTSB in its investigation.
Hyatt is the first UTU member killed in an on-duty accident in 2011.
In March, a conductor trainee was killed — as was an engineer and a crew-van driver — in Kelso, Wash., when the crew van was struck by a BNSF freight train at a private highway-rail grade crossing. UTU conductor Dwight Hauck, a member of UTU Local 324, was seriously injured in that accident.
In February, UTU conductor Alvin (A.J.) Boguess, a member of UTU Local 623, was seriously injured when he fell 55-feet from a CSX rail bridge over the Jackson River during a switching movement in Covington, W.Va.
And earlier this year, a BLET member, Stanley Watts, was killed in a Norfolk Southern switching accident in Kankakee, Ill.
Eight UTU members were killed in on-duty accidents in 2010, and eight were killed in on-duty accidents in 2009.
Hyatt, daughter of Evan Aubrey Shiver and Christine (Elliott) Shiver, was born Feb. 25, 1963, in Fort Ord, Calif. She graduated from Crystal River High School in Crystal River, Fla. She went on to study for two years in college and served six years in the U.S. Army.
Online condolences may be given under the obituary category at www.powersfh.com.
A memorial fund has been established for the three killed in a collision between a shuttle-van and freight train in Kelso, Wash., March 23.
A second fund was established to assist a UTU-member and conductor critically injured in the accident.
Killed in the collision at a private highway-rail grade-crossing were BNSF conductor-trainee Christopher Loehr, 28; BNSF locomotive engineer Thomas Kenny, 58; and van driver Steven Sebastian, 60. Critically injured was BNSF conductor Dwight Hauck, 51, a member and trustee of UTU Local 324, Seattle.
Hauck, Loehr and Kenny, who had brought a BNSF freight train from Seattle to Kelso, were passengers in the BNSF-provided shuttle van driven by Sebastian when it was hit by a BNSF freight train at the crossing. A Federal Railroad Administration investigation is underway to determine the cause of the accident.
Donations to the memorial fund will be divided equally among the families of Loehr, Kenny and Sebastian. They should be sent to:
Donations to the fund to aid the injured Hauck and his family should be sent to:
Dwight Hauck Fund Account 8277835552 Wells Fargo Bank 999 3rd Ave. Seattle, WA 98104