SPENCER, Mass. — Three people were injured when a Loram rail grinder collided with a stopped CSX freight train early Sunday morning, requiring some of the injured to be freed by first responders.
WCVB-TV reports a CSX statement indicated the accident occurred about 1:30 a.m. Spencer Fire and Emergency Services wrote on Facebook the three injured parties were transported to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Mass., with non-life-threatening injuries.
Loram, based in Hamel, Minn., is a contract provider of track maintenance, inspection, and infrastructure services for all Class I railroads as well as many short lines.
Cause of the accident is under investigation.
That one person killed on the ground was walking down a sidewalk outside Chicago-Midway when a SW pilot was too tired to go around and took a tailwind aided plane with his computer not set properly and landed anyway. (because when he entered his tailwind into the computer, it reported he didn’t have enough runway).
Even after putting the wheels down late on the runway, and using full reverse, he still ended up breaking through the perimeter fence and hitting the pedestrian when he should have aborted the landing immediately upon seeing he was setting down too late. He still thought he could “swing it” because he admitted, he was tired and wanted to end his shift on time.
Every time I read of an injury or worse on the railroads, my mind goes back to my favorite airline. Southwest Airlines has killed one passenger, one person on the ground, and zero crew, in its entire existence.
It’ll be interesting once more details are released to hear how fast the maintenance train was traveling. If grinding when the collision occurred, could they have been doing more than a couple MPH?
Current rules allow on track equipment to follow behind a train within the limits of their track authority as long as the foreman has a job briefing with the crew of the train. They still have to operate at restricted speed.
Likely grinding at night to avoid train traffic and the RWIC (Roadway Worker in Charge) went out of his work limits. But if this is signaled territory, it would seem that he would have checked with the dispatcher before passing a red signal into the train’s block.