GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — The worker who died in an Aug. 4 accident on state-owned tracks in Great Barrington was operating a leaf blower on those tracks when he was struck by a maintenance-of-way machine, the National Transportation Safety Board said in its preliminary accident report issued on Thursday.
The accident victim was identified in a Berkshire Eagle newspaper report at Rodolfo G. Rocha, 51, of Los Fresnos, Texas [see “Victim identified …,” Trains News Wire, Aug. 26, 2023], who died after being airlifted to a Springfield, Mass., hospital.
The NTSB report says the accident occurred about 10:05 a.m., and involved employees of the Middlesex Corp., performing maintenance for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation on tracks operated by the Housatonic Railroad’s Bershire Line. The victim was struck by a driller, which drills holes in railroad ties, as it returned to the work area after having been moved to a rail yard for mechanical repairs. The machine was operating in reverse at the time.
The NTSB’s investigation is ongoing, and will focus on Federal Railroad Administration regulations regarding roadway worker protection and how they are practied by the Housatonic Railroad and Middlesex Corp., as well as roadway worker oversight practices of those two companies and MassDOT.
Los Fresnos is in Southern Texas, near Brownsville, the Gulf and the Mexican border. Was language a factor?