SEATTLE, Wash. — A union official told a BNSF Railway hearing that sabotage was responsible for a fiery derailment of a crude-oil train last December in Custer, Wash., a Seattle public radio station is reporting.
National Public Radio affiliate KUOW reports Korey McDaniel, part of the safety team with the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART), told a railroad disciplinary hearing that the derailment “was caused without a doubt by sabotage,” according to a transcript obtained by the station. This conclusion, he said, came “from the FBI investigation, from how trains operate, from how trains work, how the couplers work, how the pin lifters work.”
McDaniel was representing a BNSF crew member in a hearing in which the railroad said the three-person crew had failed to detect brake problems. The station says its investigation has found that when the two halves of the train separated, it failed to trigger the emergency brakes. Instead, the 45 cars at the rear of the train reached a speed twice the limit for a train of hazardous materials, then hit the front part of the train, derailing 10 cars, with three catching fire.
The accident led to evacuations within a half-mile of the accident site and a brief closure of Interstate 5 [see “BNSF oil train derails …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 22, 2020]. Within days of the derailment, a National Transportation Safety Board spokesman said the agency saw “no evidence” of foul play [see “Digest: Refrigerator car firm Cyro-Trans purchased …,” News Wire, Jan. 6, 2021].
Investigations into the accident by the FBI, Federal Railroad Administration, and NTSB continue.
I have no inside information on this particular incident, but I do understand how such a thing could happen and why the crew could be held responsible. A similar event occurred to a crew while I was employed as a locomotive engineer.
I’m curious as to what the brake problems were that the crew failed to detect.
I thought once the air went that the brakes set up automatically???
I doubt anyone s blaming the crew. What’s strange is that if the train was on an upgrade, the separated cars would have rolled backward away from the head end, On the other hand, if it was on a down grade, how could the separation take place at all, and even less likely that the rear portion could have behaved in the way stated in the article, i.e. accelerated into the head portion?
Protect the union crew member(s) at all costs…regardless of whatever the facts may end up proving. Since the investigation is still ongoing, any speculation on cause is just that…speculation.