SMART UnionPENWELL, Texas – At least 10 people were killed Wednesday when a bus carrying state prisoners skidded off an icy highway overpass in West Texas, slid down an embankment and collided with a passing train, a county sheriff said.
The overpass on Interstate 20 was slick with ice Wednesday morning when the Texas Department of Criminal Justice bus left the roadway just west of Odessa, according to Ector County Sheriff Mark Donaldson.
Read the complete story at the Associated Press.
An administrative review board decision to award North Platte resident Brian Petersen more than $300,000 in damages from Union Pacific Railroad was upheld on Nov. 20.
The case dates back to August 2009 when Petersen, an apprentice machinist, was checking his work schedule in an employee parking lot late on the night of Aug. 28, 2009. A co-worker, pulling into the adjacent parking space, ran over Petersen’s foot.
Read the complete story at the North Platte Telegraph.
Union Pacific Railroad has boosted hiring plans and aims to add 200 new locomotives next year to improve network congestion, the company said at an investor conference Wednesday in Chicago.
“We have been short of train crews,” acknowledged Chief Operating Officer Lance Fritz, speaking at the conference. “We have more than doubled the hiring we originally planned.”
Read the complete story at the Omaha World-Herald.
Faced with public concern about the risks of crude oil shipments, the Union Pacific railroad last month boosted its rail inspection program on mountain passes in California and the West, dispatching high-tech vehicles with lasers to check tracks for imperfections.
UP officials say they have leased two rail inspection vehicles, called geometry cars, doubling the number of computer-based safety cars in use on the company’s tracks. The move comes amid mounting public concern about hazardous-material shipments, including a growing quantity of highly flammable crude oil from North Dakota being shipped to West Coast refineries.
Read the complete story at the Sacramento Bee.
California’s two major railroad companies have filed suit in federal court challenging a state law requiring railroads to come up with an oil spill prevention and response plan.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Sacramento, contends federal laws largely prohibit states from imposing safety rules on railroads such as the ones California began imposing July 1 of this year. The plaintiffs in the matter are the Union Pacific Railroad, the BNSF and the Association of American Railroads.
Read the complete story at The Sacramento Bee.
Update: KNOE 8 News has learned that the two railroad employees injured in Sunday’s train derailment are now both being treated for their injuries in a Shreveport hospital.
Mer Rouge Police Chief Mitch Stevens says the train engineer has a compound fracture to his leg and some bumps and bruises. The chief says the conductor has numerous broken ribs. He had surgery to remove his spleen and heart surgery related to the broken ribs.
Visit KNOE 8 for updates on this story.
Original Post:
MER ROUGE, La. – Two Union Pacific engineers were injured when their train derailed in Mer Rouge early Sunday (Oct. 5) afternoon after colliding with a truck that was stuck on the tracks.
The driver of the truck was uninjured after bailing out as the train approached. “The driver jumped out of the truck and took off running,” said Mer Rouge Police Chief Mitch Stephens. “That was all he could do.”
Read the complete story at The News Star.
An important highway in northeast Arkansas could stay closed into next week as crews clean up the wreckage left from a head-on train collision, a highway official said Wednesday.
Two railroad workers were killed and two others were injured when the Union Pacific freight trains crashed.
Read the complete story at ClaimsJournal.com.
A funeral service will be held at 12 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 23, at Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Chapel in Allen, Texas, for SMART Transportation Division member Roderick A. Hayes, 31, who was killed in a Union Pacific train collision Aug. 17.
Interment will follow at Ridgeview Memorial Park.
The family will receive friends during a visitation from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday evening, Aug. 22, at the chapel.
Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Chapel is located at 2525 Central Expressway North in Allen.
Hayes was a member of SMART Transportation Division 656 at North Little Rock, Ark.
He grew up in Chicago and attended East-West University and Chicago State University. He was an avid runner and enjoyed cars.
He is survived by his wife, Sheneé; children Quentin, Rashaun Jones, Roderick Jr. and Yahara; parents Sybil and George; brother Stephon Hayes (Monica), and sister, Linda. He was preceded in death by his sister, Vonda Farmer.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A federal investigator said Tuesday (Aug. 19) that a signal that would have given a final instruction to the crew of a railroad train involved in a fatal head-on collision was damaged in the accident but could still hold clues as to what happened.
Crews are hopeful they can recover data from the signal, which was alongside a Union Pacific track near Hoxie in northeastern Arkansas. Two railroad workers died in the accident Sunday morning and two others were injured.
Read the complete story at the Houston Chronicle.
Two Union Pacific Railroad employees were killed and two others were injured when two UP trains collided early Sunday (Aug. 17) morning in Hoxie, Ark.
SMART Transportation Division member and conductor Roderick A. Hayes, 31, and engineer Chance Gober, 40, were both killed on the southbound train, according to a report by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Injured on the northbound train were SMART Transportation Division member and conductor Aaron P. Jeffery and engineer Michael Zompakos.
Hayes and Jeffery both belonged to SMART Transportation Division 656 at North Little Rock, Ark.
Details on the conditions of Jeffery and Zompakos are not yet available.
The National Transportation Safety Board is now investigating and General Chairperson James Herndon and Georgia State Legislative Director Matt Campbell of the SMART Transportation Safety Team have been assigned to assist in the investigation.
The SMART Transportation Safety Team (TST) is comprised of 17 members of the SMART Transportation Division, each of whom is on call 24 hours a day to assist in determining the facts in rail-related accidents.
Hayes was a SMART member for 20 months and Jeffery has been a SMART member for approximately 10 years.