Today's Headlines Today's HeadlinesALTON, Iowa (AP) -- A freight train from Minnesota slammed head-on into an empty grain train near this small northwest Iowa town, killing a conductor and the driver of a van that was parked by the tracks, officials said Thursday.
Five locomotives and 30 cars derailed between the two trains in the collision late Wednesday, said Mark Davis, an Omaha, Neb.-based spokesman for Union Pacific.
The accident occurred along Iowa 60 about 5 miles south of Alton, which is about 40 miles northeast of Sioux City. Both were Union Pacific trains.
The conductor of the freight train, Paul Schmidt, 23, of Boone, Iowa, was killed. The driver of the van, Dale Evans, 45, of Sioux City also was killed.
BLE Division 369 (Minneapolis, Minn.) member, Jason Haller, 27, of Chippewa Falls, Wis., the engineer on the freight train, was taken to Orange City Hospital after suffering bruises. He was treated and released.
There was no one on the grain train at the time of the collision, the Sioux County sheriff's office said. The grain train was parked on the main tracks when the southbound freight train hit it at the junction with a side track.
"We're investigating why the freight train didn't go on to the side track," Davis said. He did not know whether the tracks are switched automatically or by hand.
Davis did not know how fast the freight train was traveling, but the speed limit for trains in the area is 49 mph, he said.
"Railroad equipment is extremely heavy, and when you have a collision of this nature, it will be violent," he said.
Evans, who had worked for two weeks for Cimarron Coach of Iowa, a West Des Moines-based private van company, was supposed to pick up two crew members of the empty grain train, said Diana Deibler, a company spokeswoman.
"He was at a bad place at a bad time," sheriff's dispatcher Loren Wilken said.
Davis did not know whether the grain train crew witnessed the collision, but he said they were being interviewed as part of the investigation.
Davis said a fire broke out, but it was extinguished.
Of the cars that derailed, 14 were empty, 10 were filled with sand, three with grain and the others were carrying soybean oil, lard and frozen meat. All the derailed cars and three of the locomotives came off the freight train.
Davis said the 126-car freight train was traveling from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to North Platte, Neb. The empty grain train had 75 cars and did not derail.
Davis said the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Railroad Administration began assessing the accident Thursday. He said the teams have not set a time for the track to reopen.
It is the second accident involving a Union Pacific train in Iowa this
month. A train collided with a tractor on Nov. 7 near Buckeye in northeast
Iowa. The train's engineer was killed, and the train's conductor and the
operator of the tractor were injured.
ALTON, Iowa -- A fatal crash of two Union Pacific Railroad trains in northwest Iowa Wednesday night could have been prevented by technology designed to automatically stop trains on a collision course, federal safety officials said Thursday.
According to the Omaha World-Herald, National Transportation Safety Board officials said the accident five miles south of Alton wouldn't have happened if the railroad had been using the special safety equipment.
"It can stop a train automatically if there is a human error or a mechanical error," said Phil Frame, a safety board spokesman.
"We have asked the Federal Railroad Administration to require it. It has been on our 10 most-wanted list of safety recommendations for some time."
A U.P. spokesman said the safety technology referred to by Frame is still in the testing phase.
"It's not a proven technology," said John Bromley, the U.P. spokesman. "I think we agree it's certainly worthwhile to pursue the idea, though."
Investigators from the safety board and U.P. were trying to determine the cause of the crash. The accident occurred about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday when the southbound Union Pacific freight train slammed into a parked U.P. grain train.
The accident occurred about five miles south of Alton and about 35 miles northeast of Sioux City.
It was the second fatal accident of the day for Omaha-based Union Pacific. A U.P. brakeman was killed Wednesday afternoon when he was struck by a train near the Lincoln airport.
In the Iowa crash, a U.P. conductor died when he jumped off the southbound train before the collision. The driver of a passenger van near the tracks also died when a rail car derailed and rolled over his vehicle.
The U.P. conductor was Paul D. Schmidt, 23, of Boone, Iowa. He started work for the railroad last April, Bromley said.
Cy Gura, an engineer with the safety board, said that after Schmidt jumped off the train, he was struck by tanker cars that piled up and tumbled as the accident occurred.
The train's engineer, who stayed on board and rode out the crash, was treated for minor injuries.
The van driver who died was Dale R. Evans, 45, of St. Joseph, Mo. Evans was on the scene to pick up the crew of the grain train. He worked for a company that contracts with U.P. to shuttle locomotive crews to and from trains.
Five locomotives and 30 cars derailed in the crash. A fire broke out but was extinguished.
U.P.'s Bromley said the 126-car southbound train was supposed to use a side track to go around the grain train, which was parked on the main track. Instead, the southbound train stayed on the main line and struck the grain train head-on. The grain train was unoccupied.
Bromley said investigators were looking at why the southbound train did not enter the side track. It's possible that either the crew or a dispatcher in Omaha made an error, he said.
The safety board's Gura said investigators would inspect the braking systems on the southbound train to determine whether the brakes were working properly. Investigators also wanted to review documents from U.P. that show the routes of each train and which tracks they were supposed to be traveling on, Gura said.
Frame said a team of 11 safety board investigators was working at the accident scene and the railroad's dispatching center in Omaha.
There were no train traffic signals on the stretch of track where the accident occurred. On such stretches, known as "dark territory," train movements are governed by orders from dispatchers.
The railroad added safety checks to such procedures after a dispatcher's error in Omaha caused the collision of two U.P. trains in June 1997. That accident, which killed four people, happened on a stretch of dark territory in Texas. Safety board officials said they have recommended the use of the automatic collision-avoidance system to prevent such collisions. The equipment includes a safety sensor that would cause trains to shut down or brake if they came too close to another train on the same rail line, Frame said. The safety board calls such devices "positive train separation" systems.
Gura said the devices can use satellite technology or electronic transponders on the rail line to track train movements. Such devices are used in some Northeast rail lines and in metropolitan areas such as Chicago, he said.
In the aftermath of the Iowa accident, bulldozers were being used to pull apart the overturned tanker cars and charred locomotive engines. About a dozen semi-tractor trucks with flatbed trailers were lined up to haul off heavy machinery that had been brought in to remove the wreckage. Union Pacific also had a semitrailer truck with a mobile office attached to coordinate the effort.
In the Lincoln accident, U.P. brakeman Richard C. Heidvogel, 57, of Plattsmouth, Neb., died when he was struck by a freight car of a moving train about 1 p.m. He had worked for the railroad for 35 years. Bromley said the train crew was switching and moving cars near the Lincoln Municipal Airport when the accident occurred. The fatalities brought to nine the number of U.P. employees killed in accidents this year, Bromley said. That compares to four in all of 1998.
U.P. came under intense scrutiny from federal regulators in 1997 when 11 people were killed in a series of train collisions on the railroad.
"Any fatality is bad," Bromley said. "Our goal is to have zero fatalities."
The Federal Railroad Administration was expected to join the investigations
of both the Iowa and Lincoln accidents.
FULLERTON, Calif. (AP) -- Federal officials are investigating why a commuter train crossed a set of tracks before the last car of a freight train heading in the opposite direction had gotten out of the way. The Metrolink commuter train was carrying 65 passengers on Thursday when it collided with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight, injuring 15 people, spilling cargo and igniting fires.
It was the first collision between trains for the 7-year-old Metrolink system connecting Los Angeles with neighboring counties.
The commuter train was bound from Los Angeles to south Orange County and Oceanside in north San Diego County. It apparently reached a switch between parallel tracks and struck the tail end of the 38-car freight heading to Los Angeles from Chicago.
The injured were taken to area hospitals and treated for mostly minor injuries. The most serious injuries were a broken arm and leg, said Metrolink spokesman Peter Hidalgo.
"Everybody was screaming. I was screaming ... I've never been that scared in my life," passenger Lamont Hawkins, 41, of Long Beach, told the Los Angeles Times.
The impact toppled freight cars loaded with parcel containers, starting fires amid the spilled cargo and under the Metrolink engine. The blazes were quickly extinguished.
The commuter cars remained on their tracks but the engine derailed.
Federal railroad authorities and the National Transportation Safety Board
were investigating.
TORONTO -- Canadian transportation industries -- and the governments that tax and regulate them -- must come together now to forge a comprehensive national transportation policy, Canadian National President and Chief Executive Officer Paul M. Tellier said today.
Transportation is crucial to Canadian competitiveness in world markets -- 42 per cent of the nation's gross domestic product is exported -- yet Canadian carriers must contend with complicated regulations, unfavorable tax treatment and differing policy frameworks, Tellier told the Ontario Trucking Association.
Tellier said the lack of a cohesive national transportation policy is harming Canadian competitiveness -- truckers say crowded, under-funded highways in certain regions of Canada threaten their ability to serve Canadian industry in North American markets. And railroads say tax and regulatory inequities compromise their ability to serve Canadian exporters effectively in competition with trucks and U.S. railroads.
Tellier said the critical issue for governments is the development of a clear, balanced, integrated national transportation policy. This policy, worked out in concert with carriers, must ensure adequate infrastructure, promote the most productive use of that infrastructure and permit each mode of transport to maximize its competitive advantages.
"For rail, the issue is our tax and regulatory regime," Tellier said. "Canada must match American regimes that have helped make their system the most efficient and low-cost rail system in the world."
CN, which spent more than $1 billion last year on capital programs, is hamstrung by Canadian tax policies that make it more expensive than in the U.S. to upgrade rail transportation technology.
"We pay almost double the tax rate American railroads pay on inputs such as fuel, property and capital. The tax depreciation period for capital investments is 30 years for Canadian railroads, compared with just eight years for American railroads."
Domestic intermodal equity is another key issue for railroads, Tellier said, stressing CN is forging ahead with the changes and investments necessary to improve its truck competitiveness - it's adopted a new service plan that delivers freight with the consistency of a conveyor belt, and has acquired RoadRailer technology to improve door-to-door intermodal service between Montreal and Toronto.
Yet taxation, again, is a hindrance. "Right now in Canada, taxes are a major inequity between trucks and rail. Rail pays 14 per cent of gross revenue in taxes. Trucks pay 10 per cent. Our taxes help pay for your infrastructure."
Tax and regulatory changes that create a more level playing field between truck and rail will benefit railroads, motor carriers, shippers and the tax-paying and traveling public, said Tellier.
"Both your industry and ours will benefit if more shippers move more traffic from the highways to rails. You reduce the highway congestion that is choking your ability to move. We increase our density, making our networks more viable."
Tellier said government regulation should "encourage rail where it makes sense. This means hours of operation regulations for trucks that don't encourage long-hauls that should be put on rail. It means regulations that encourage railroads to streamline their infrastructure and cut costs."
Railroads were partially deregulated by the Canada Transportation Act of 1996 -- which is subject to a federal review next year -- and the results have been positive:
* Lower rail rates -- rates that have dropped, on average, 27 per cent in the 10 years ended 1997;
* Reasonable financial returns -- railroads are getting closer to earning their cost of capital;
* Greater rail investment -- over the past five years CN and Canadian Pacific Railway have spent $6.1 billion on capital programs, and
* Better service levels -- CN is on course to achieve 90 per cent on-time delivery of carload freight by year-end
"We have a lot of work to do to raise the profile of transportation issues -- issues at the heart of Canadian productivity; issues that will determine the standard of living and quality of life of Canadians.
"Let's work together to get a national transportation policy that is transparent, internationally competitive and intermodally equitable. We have no time to lose."
Canadian National Railway Company spans Canada and mid-America, from
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to the Gulf of Mexico, serving the ports
of Vancouver, Montreal, Halifax, New Orleans, and Mobile, Ala., and the
key cities of Toronto, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, St. Louis, and
Jackson, Miss., with connections to all points in North America.
COEUR d'ALENE, Idaho -- A heartfelt promise wrapped up a three-day hearing on Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway's proposed refueling depot at Hauser, the Spokesman-Review reported.
Jean DeBarbieris, the hearing examiner advising the Kootenai County commissioners, made a pledge to the audience at Lake City High School on Wednesday.
"You cannot imagine how seriously I take this," DeBarbieris said in a statement followed by loud applause. "I will do what I believe is right for the good of all the people."
Within four weeks, DeBarbieris will submit a recommendation for or against the depot to county commissioners. Then they will decide the depot's fate, potentially after calling for more public hearings.
Hanging in the balance: the railroad's plans to build a 500,000-gallon refueling facility near Rathdrum on land the railway owns over the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie aquifer.
Wednesday night, railroad officials got 30 minutes to respond to opponents' challenges from the night before. They also answered a long list of questions from DeBarbieris.
Numerous industries located over the aquifer offer far less protection than the depot's double underground liners and leak detectors would, Burlington Northern attorney Janet Robnett said.
"This project can and should be set up as the guiding light," Robnett said.
Scientific predictions practically guarantee drinking water would not be threatened by an unlikely diesel spill into the ground above the aquifer, said Eastern Washington University geologist John Buchanan, a widely respected researcher "This project can and should be set up as the guiding light," Robnett said.
Scientific predictions practically guarantee drinking water would not be threatened, even in the unlikely event of a diesel spill into the ground above the aquifer, said Eastern Washington University geologist John Buchanan, a widely respected researcher retained by the railroad.
Models used by the railroad to predict diesel spills came under fire from a study requested by depot foes and state regulators, who say BNSF's science wasn't conservative enough.
Buchanan defended the models as sound.
"This project will maintain the existing high quality of ground water in Kootenai County," Buchanan said. "Human health is not at risk."
Rail officials also responded to charges that accidents in BNSF's Spokane yard rose ninefold since 1985. Human-error accidents in Spokane have dropped by 43 percent since last year, according to Spokane Division Superintendent Kelly Duryea.
Robnett said the depot complies with Kootenai County comprehensive plan requirements that industry maintain existing ground water quality and be in the public's interest.
DeBarbieris must consider the depot within the context of the comprehensive plan. But she will also consider the overall -- and much more ambiguous -- risk the depot poses to the aquifer and human health, she said after the hearing.
"As a component of public interest, it needs to be considered."
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