(The following article by Ana Radelat was posted on the Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger website on March 21. Buddy Irby and Mark Cain were both members of BLET Division 203 in Jackson.)
WASHINGTON — By failing to stop at a signal, a northbound CN train may have caused the fatal, head-on collision with another CN freight train traveling south near Yazoo City in 2005, according to documents in a federal investigation.
That crash in Anding on July 10, 2005, killed four crew members who were operating the trains and touched off a massive fire fueled by 24,000 gallons of spilled diesel. About 50 residents were evacuated from Anding as a precaution.
The National Transportation Safety Board released its findings on march 21.
“The probable cause of the accident was the failure of the crew members (of the northbound train) to comply with the stop signal indicator,” said one report.
CN spokesman Jim Kvedaras said the company would not comment on the crash until the results of the final investigation are released. CN is the U.S. subsidiary of Canadian National Railways.
In its report to the NTSB, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen also said they believed the cause of the crash was the northbound train’s failure to stop at a red signal minutes before the collision.
“Because the only two people in the cab of the northbound locomotive did not survive the accident, we have no way of knowing why they passed the stop signal,” the union’s report said.
“Therefore the reasons for this accident will never be known.”
The northbound train involved in the crash consisted of four locomotives and 137 cars, most of them empty. It was traveling at 45 mph when it hit the southbound train.
The southbound train, composed of two locomotives and 107 cars, was traveling at 23 mph when it approached the site of the accident. About half the cars carried cargo, some of which was hazardous material, including four cars of hydrogen cyanide.
The crash resulted in more than $10 million in losses, mostly to the railroad. The NTSB has spent more than 18 months investigating the crash, interviewing dozens of witnesses and collecting information on the trains and their crew members.
Information collected by the agency included cell phone records of the conductor of the southbound train’s engineer, Mark Cain, 51, of Purvis. NTSB investigators also extensively interviewed railroad workers about the state of mind and physical condition of the northbound train’s engineer, Buddy Irby, 58, of Sandhill.
The crash occurred about 4:15 a.m. in a curve. “The dispatching plan called for the northbound train to hold the main track at Anding siding while the southbound train passed through the siding,” according to documents.
William Berry, a CN dispatcher, said he had warned Cain he would meet a northbound train but failed to tell him where.
Berry also said he was unable to contact either train by radio when he realized that they were on a collision course.
Berry resorted to trying to call the crew’s cell phones but reached only their voice mailboxes.
In a desperate attempt to get a message to the trains, the CN employees tried to call the Flora Police Department. But before they could dial the Police Department’s number, they received a report the trains were derailed and on fire, Berry said.
Killed were Cain, Irby, Shannon Purvis, 21, of Puckett and Sam Jones Sr., 58, of Jackson, both of whom were conductors. Cain, initially hired as a brakeman, had worked for CN since 1973. Irby, hired in 1969, had worked as an engineer for more than 30 years. Purvis was hired in June 2002, and Jones had worked for CN since 1968.
Toxicological testing for drugs and alcohol was not possible on the two northbound train crew members because of the subsequent fire. No illegal drugs or alcohol were found in the two southbound crew members’ tests.
Interviews with several CN employees who had some contact with one or both of the accident crews before the accident revealed nothing out of the ordinary, according to the documents.