OAKLAND — A collision last month between an Amtrak train and a Union Pacific tractor working to recover abandoned vehicles on an Oakland trackway injured four people and caused $265,000 in damage, according to a preliminary report released Wednesday by National Transportation Safety Board investigators.
The report describes the collision, which happened just after 11 a.m. July 15 at a grade crossing where railway tracks meet 50th Avenue just south of East 8th Street, between an Amtrak Capitol Corridor train and a Union Pacific roadway maintenance machine.
The machine’s operator and a train passenger were hospitalized for severe and minor injuries, respectively, while two train crew members were treated at the scene for minor injuries. Two other train crew members and 30 other passengers were unhurt.
The tractor was part of a Union Pacific work group assigned to work with a regional auto-theft task force “by loading stolen or abandoned automobiles onto a tow truck near the highway-railroad grade crossing at 50th Avenue,” the report said.
The tractor was coming off the trackway onto 50th Avenue as part of plans to set up a work zone on the main track, allowing the tractor and a backhoe to work along the north side of the tracks while recovering vehicles. That’s when a southbound Capitol Corridor train traveling from Sacramento to San Jose came along the main track.
The report found that gate arms and flashing warning lights were working at the time. The train’s locomotive and five railcars were damaged but not derailed and the roadway maintenance machine was pushed several feet past a neighboring track onto another unoccupied trackway used for housing or storing unused equipment.
An event recorder aboard the train shows it was traveling at 68 miles per hour, below the maximum allowable speed of 79 mph, and that the train engineer activated emergency brakes right after the collision.
Video from a front-facing image recorder captured audio of the engineer’s required sounding of the train’s horn on approach to the intersection, as well as the moment when the tractor “turned in front of the train and fouled the track,” partly entering the trackway before the collision, the report said.
The report — based on NTSB investigators’ equipment inspections, site visits, interviews, signal-data review and other materials — is still being finalized, with investigators’ future efforts geared toward roadway worker protections.
Other groups involved in the investigation include Union Pacific, the Federal Railroad Administration, Amtrak, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, and the California Public Utilities Commission.
In a statement Wednesday, a Union Pacific representative called the collision “a tragic incident, and we are working closely with the federal agencies investigating this collision.”
Contact George Kelly at 408-859-5180.
Source: www.mercurynews.com