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Two people died when two trains collided near Bryan Jan. 17, 1999. Debris derailed a third train on a parallel track.
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NTSB faults Conrail crew in fatal collision

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NTSB faults Conrail crew in fatal collision

WASHINGTON - The crew aboard a Conrail freight train operating in dense fog probably never saw the signals that could have prevented a fatal collision near Bryan on a January night in 1999, the National Transportation Safety Board ruled.

In its final report on the accident, the safety board concluded that the crew's operation of the train at or near the maximum authorized speed in fog conditions and failure to comply with signals warning of another train ahead probably caused the three-train crash, which killed two people.

“They should have been going at a slower speed,'' board member John Hammerschmidt said after an NTSB hearing here yesterday to discuss the pending report. While Conrail's rules allowed trains to proceed after stopping at certain red signals, trains were allowed to do so only at a speed permitting them to stop within half of the crew's sight distance.

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But relatives of the dead engineer, Roger Bell, 57, of Oregon, and fellow railroaders disputed the investigators' assertion that he and conductor Raymond Corell could have run past several signals in a row without seeing anything.

“Knowing the crew, I don't think it happened that way,” said Kevin Campbell, a retired Conrail engineer who worked the Chicago-Toledo run earlier that evening. “There had to be something else involved.”

Robert Godwin, who at that time was the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers' general chairman for Conrail, said event-recorder tapes from the locomotive show acceleration just before the crash, as if the crew had seen a green signal after having passed a yellow one. But Jay Kivowitz, lead crash investigator, said no problems were found with the signal system after the crash. Signal systems are designed to display a red signal if they malfunction, though sometimes a faulty relay can result in a “false green” indication.

The safety board's final accident report will be made public in a few months.

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About 2 a.m. Jan. 17, 1999, the westbound mail and container train Mr. Bell and Mr. Corell were operating at about 55 mph slammed into the rear of a slower moving train. Crash debris derailed a third train headed the other way on a parallel track.

Mr. Bell and Mr. Corell, 52, of Angola, Ind., died of head injuries. The wreck, which caused an estimated $5.3 million damage, disrupted rail service between Toledo and Chicago for days.

The signal system is designed to display at least one, and sometimes two, yellow signals before a train faces a red signal. But in heavy fog, investigators said, crews running at full speed might have had less than a second to observe each signal.

Investigators found the lack of a backup safety system to help alert crew members to signals, such as an in-cab display that repeats the lights displayed along the tracks, contributed to the accident. They found no evidence that alcohol or drugs contributed to the crash.

The NTSB recommended railroads implement signal tests to ensure that train crews follow uniform procedures when they encounter reduced-visibility conditions.

The board recommended the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the United Transportation Union, the Association of American Railroads, and the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association advise members of the findings and the importance of complying with operating rules when visibility is reduced.

Safety board members reiterated a recommendation to the Federal Railroad Administration to require installation of train voice recorders for use in investigations.

The board decided to set aside for later discussion the issue of “positive train separation,'' a technology aimed at preventing collisions by using satellites to determine train positions and automatically stopping trains if their engineers do not react correctly to signals.

“It's an issue on our most-wanted list,'' Ted Lopatkiewicz, a safety board spokesman, said after the hearing. “They wanted, as a board, to determine how to address this now, in light of another accident.''

Brandi LaCourse, a daughter of Mr. Bell, attended the board's hearing and said she hopes the railroad industry will “make some changes that would help other people, so it's safer for my brother and safer for the other guys who were out there working. They need better communications, better signals.''

Mr. Bell's son, who is Ms. LaCourse's brother, Bryan Bell, is a railroad engineer.

Mr. Bell's widow, Norma, faults the railroad for her husband's death, and has an $11 million civil lawsuit pending in U.S. District Court against Conrail.

“It definitely could have been avoided,'' she said. “No man should be behind the wheel and have to drive in those conditions. My husband always [put] safety first. He lived his life that way.''

Mike Handy, a student engineer under Mr. Bell's guidance until several weeks before the crash, said the veteran engineer stressed constant vigilance while working on the railroad, especially in fog.

“It does only take a second to miss a signal,” said Mr. Handy, who is now a Norfolk Southern engineer. “But you've got two guys up there who each had 30 years experience. I don't believe they missed the signals. Even if you just think you may have missed a signal, you slow down.”

Conrail, which in early 1999 was jointly owned by CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern Corp., was split up by those two firms in June of that year. The tracks upon which the collision occurred now belong to Norfolk Southern.

First Published April 4, 2001, 10:39 a.m.

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