Following an April 28, 2015, incident involving two Southwestern Railroad freight train cars colliding near Roswell, New Mexico, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has this week determined that train conductor fatigue was the likely cause.
The incident led to the death of the striking train’s engineer and the serious injury to the conductor. In all, 11 locomotives and 3 empty hopper cars derailed and around $2 million in property damage resulted. According to the NTSB, the train conductor of a standing Roswell Local train failed to properly line a switch, causing a westbound train to slam into that train where it stood in the Chisum siding. The striking train’s crew did not realize the misaligned switch in non-signaled territory and failed to stop their train in time.
“A train is an enormous machine that can injure or kill people, damage property or harm the environment,” NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said. “Given the stakes, image and audio recorders belong in train cabs. Yes, they help investigators but they also can help railroads ensure safer operations.”
The NTSB has, as a result, issued a safety recommendation to the Federal Railroad Administration to create some means of eliminating the possibility of employees failing to perform critical tasks, under which lining a switch falls. They also used the incident to highlight concerns made before, which include installation of technology to warn trains of incorrectly lined main track switches and addressing the installation of recordings to capture crew actions.
Alcohol was found to be a factor in the incident, although marijuana was found in the system and presence of the engineer. However, he NTSB could not say if this affected his response to the incident.