(The Omaha World-Herald posted the following Associated Press article on its website on February 13.)
SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. — A conductor who jumped from a coal train before it collided with a switch engine and derailed was killed after being buried under more than 2,000 tons of coal Thursday.
The body of Steven D. Thomas, 38, of Alliance was recovered two hours after the derailment, Burlington Northern Santa Fe spokesman Steve Forsberg said.
Both the Federal Railroad Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.
The coal train may have collided with a switch engine used to move rail cars from a main line to a side track, Forsberg said.
“Why that occurred, we don’t know,” Forsberg said. “Obviously they should not have been in the same place at the same time.”
The engineer of the switch engine also was buried in coal when it was knocked off the track, Forsberg said. He was pulled free and transported to Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff. Two other crew members in that engine were not injured.
The coal train’s engineer was suffering from shock but otherwise unhurt, Forsberg said.
Heavy moving equipment was brought to the scene, but the cranes could not start picking up rail cars until power to electrical lines above the derailment site were turned off.
Mangled debris from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe train dwarfed rescue vehicles and people at the scene, with at least one train car standing straight up on one end.
Two engines and about 20 loaded cars derailed, including cars thrown onto their sides. Each car normally carries 110 tons of coal, Forsberg said.
“I haven’t seen one like this in a long time,” Scotts Bluff County Sheriff Jim Lawson said.
Electricity was out in a wide portion of town for about a half hour, and the sheriff’s office closed a mile of South Beltline Highway near the derailment.
The derailment occurred shortly after the noon hour in southeast Scottsbluff, about a quarter mile from the Western Sugar factory. The factory was not affected.
Thomas, who had eight years experience with the railroad, is survived by a wife and two small children, Forsberg said.
The eastbound coal train was traveling from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming to New Mexico.