OMAHA, Nebraska — Transmission errors combined with the failure of two backup systems caused a Union Pacific train to collide with 75 wagons that was parked on a Southern California siding for nine months two years ago, killing a train driver and a conductor, according to a report released Thursday.
The National Transportation Safety Board of final report detailed what the cause was the crash in the desert near the Salton Sea in September 2022.
Investigators determined that errors by dispatchers at the railroad’s headquarters in Omaha led to the train being routed directly into the parked cars. One dispatcher even ignored a train crew member who said a colleague had told them there were cars on that siding because his computer screen didn’t show anything on that track.
The NTSB said that two weeks earlier, a dispatcher improperly deleted a note from the computer indicating that the track was occupied without checking to see if the tracks were clear. Another dispatcher ignored a separate warning about the siding that night and also sent the train there without checking to see if the tracks were clear. Both actions violated Union Pacific rules.
The railway company has not yet commented on the report.
Safety on the track has been around since the founding of a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, and a collection of dangerous chemicals leaked and ignited. Half of the city was evacuated three days later when officials decided to blow up and burn five tank cars the vinyl chloride inside, creating a huge plume of black smoke.
At the time of the California crash, the 7,368-foot (2,250-meter) long train had two locomotives at the front and two at the rear. It was the crew in the rear locomotives who were killed when the train backed into the cars.
Normally, a system on the tracks would electronically detect the parked cars and amplify the note in the dispatchers’ computers. But that system failed because rust formed on the rails and wheels of the cars during the months they sat idle and the circuit of the tracks could not conduct electricity.
Investigators checked computer logs from the weeks before the crash and found that cars parked on the tracks sometimes appeared in the system, but sometimes disappeared due to rust, causing occasional problems.
In addition, Union Pacific regulations required that switches leading to tracks where cars are stored long-term be mechanically interlocked. But the NTSB “found no spikes or clamps on the switches leading to the Bertram track, indicating that UP personnel had not followed its own rules for protecting cars in long-term storage.”
After the crash, Union Pacific changed its rules to make it harder for that to happen. Dispatchers must now work with field managers to verify how long cars are stored and ensure that maintenance workers remove the tracks from service if the cars are there for more than 10 days.
Rail operators also stressed to train dispatchers that they must first confirm that a track is free before deleting a note from the computer stating that it is occupied.