Burlington Northern Santa Fe crew members Tom Anderson and Patricia Hyatt, both of Creston, were asleep when their coal train, weighing a total of 18,529 tons, rear ended another BNSF train carrying maintenance equipment last April, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
The collision killed both Anderson and Hyatt.
“Once again, this investigation draws attention to the dangers of human fatigue,” NTSB Chairman Deborah A. P. Hersman said in the report. “The human body is not designed to work irregular schedules, especially during the circadian trough, when our bodies are at their lowest alertness.”
Also contributing to the accident was the absence of a positive train control system that identifies the rear of a train and stops a following train if a safe braking profile is exceeded, the report said.
As a result of this accident investigation, the NTSB made safety recommendations to Federal Railroad Administration, Association of American Railroads and BNSF Railway.
The safety issues addressed by the recommendations include: train crew fatigue, BNSF Railway fatigue awareness training, positive train control regulations, design and crashworthiness of modular locomotive cabs and survivability of electronic data. The NTSB's full report will be available on the website (www.ntsb.gov) in coming weeks.