Incorrectly lined switch led to collision of UP trains at yard in Texas, NTSB determines

WASHINGTON — An incorrectly lined switch — the result of an error by a crew member of a train not involved in the incident — led to a collision between two trains at Union Pacific’s yard in Chico, Texas, on April 16, 2023, the National Transportation Safety Board said in an investigation report released today (Nov. 21, 2024).

A contributing factor, the report says, was the inability of the dispatcher and train crew to determine the position of the switch in non-signaled territory in time to prevent the collision. Chico, on UP’s Duncan Subdivision, is about 50 miles northwest of Fort Worth, Texas.

The incident at 6:44 p.m. CT saw southbound grain train GSHFCC15 routed into a yard track where it struck parked train RDACO15 in Chico Yard. The grain train was moving at 49.8 mph when the engineer initiated an emergency brake application just before reaching the switch; it was still traveling at 36.7 mph at the time of the collision. [See “UP train was going 35 mph when it hit parked train …,” Trains News Wire, May 11, 2023.] Two crew members from the grain train were seriously injured, with one airlifted to a hospital.

Two locomotives and 12 loaded hopper cars from the three-engine, 103-car grain train, traveling from Hutchinson, Kansas, to Corpus Christi, Texas, derailed. Also derailed were two locomotives and one empty gondola from the 105-car parked train; no crew members were on board at the time of the collision. Damage was estimated at about $4.9 million.

Prior to the collision, the crew of a third train, RHKPHQ15, moved its train from a location in the yard to the adjacent Hanson Rock Plant track. The crew agreed the conductor would return to re-line the Lonestar siding switch, which led to the Rock Plant as well as the siding, for main track movement. The conductor later told UP and NTSB interviewers he had done so, but the conductor and engineer failed to initial a logbook entry confirming that action. UP’s superintendent said in a written statement to the NTSB that when he arrived at the accident scene the Lonestar switch, and the C-yard main track switch were both lined and locked to divert trains off the main line. NTSB investigators later concluded that the conductor had likely lined the C-yard switch when he meant to re-line the nearby Lonestar switch, and failing to sign the logbook “may have a resulted in a missed opportunity for the conductor to think through his actions, note the location of the Lonestar main track switch, and recognize that he had he had lined the C-yard main track switch instead.”

The dispatcher, having been told the Lonestar switch had been relined, had no way to know otherwise because the yard is in non-PTC, unsignaled territory. The approaching train crew, unaware both tracks had been lined to take trains off the main, crossed the incorrectly aligned yard switch and struck the parked train.

Following the incident, the Federal Railroad Administration issued a safety bulletin regarding safe operations of hand-operated main track switches in non-slgnalled territory; Union Pacific issued an alert reminding employees of applicable rules and imposed a 20-mph head-end speed restriction through the yard.

The NTSB has previously issued a recommendation to the FRA that it require railroads to install technology in non-signalled territory to warn approaching trains of incorrectly main track switches; the FRA indicated in 2019 that it did not plan to act on the recommendation because it “could not determine a cost-justified regulatory solution.”