TOLEDO, Ohio — In the year since a runaway freight train barreled through Ohio on a 66-mile journey past barns and back yards, investigators have come to a conclusion that it was simply a “freak thing,” a wire service reported.
Federal and state investigators say that because what happened was so unusual, there was no need to order CSX Transportation to change its operational procedures.
“There was definitely a unique set of circumstances,” said Warren Flatau, a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration. “It was somewhat of a fluke.”
For two hours on May 15, the train with no one at the controls rolled at up to 47 mph, until a CSX employee made a daring leap aboard and stopped it.
“We’re pretty confident that this will never — probably — happen again,” said Rob Marvin, transportation director for the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. “We both came to the same conclusion that this was a freak thing. An absolute once in a lifetime.”
In their probe, federal investigators re-created the train’s escape using the same train in the same rail yard.
The federal agency concluded that CSX Transportation didn’t break any laws, and it didn’t punish the Jacksonville, Fla., company.
CSX spokesman Bob Sullivan said the company talked to train crews nationwide — including the crew that had been on the runaway train — about operation guidelines. He wouldn’t say whether CSX has changed any internal operations.
CSX employee Jon Hosfeld, a trainmaster at a small rail yard near Kenton, hopped in a truck and chased the runaway train. He caught up with it, pulled himself aboard and stopped it.
“It was such a freak occurrence,” he said.
Hosfeld says he never felt like a hero — not even after meeting President Bush about three weeks after his brush with fame.