(The following appeared on the Fon du Lac Reporter website on March 7.)
RANDOM LAKE, Wisc. — A train conductor from Indiana died in Random Lake on Wednesday night when he was crushed between two railroad cars while making a delivery, officials said Thursday.
Frederick C. Phelps, 55, died about 9:20 p.m. Wednesday at Lakeside Foods Co., 709 Allen St., according to the Sheboygan County Sheriff’s Department. Emergency medical personnel pronounced him dead three minutes after a 911 call was placed, officials said.
Phelps, an employee of the Wisconsin & Southern Railroad, lived in Whiting, Ind., which is about 15 miles southeast of Chicago.
He is the first railroad employee killed in Wisconsin since August 2005, when a Union Pacific Railroad employee died in a train-vehicle collision in Dodge County, according to the Federal Railroad Administration database. No Wisconsin & Southern employees had been killed on the job since the database began in 1975.
Capt. Dave Adams of the sheriff’s department said a locomotive was pushing two boxcars along the track from the main line to a warehouse when the incident occurred. Phelps and a conductor in training were standing on the back corners of the boxcar farthest from the locomotive when the car left the tracks and lurched toward Phelps’ side.
Phelps was crushed between the corner of the boxcar and the side of another car parked on a parallel track, Adams said. Cause of death was listed as blunt force trauma to the chest.
It was not immediately clear what caused the boxcar to leave the track, which Adams said had snow and ice on it.
Jeromy Nickelsen, general manager of Lakeside Foods, said the railroad was dropping off a load of pea seed after hours, and no Lakeside employees were on site at the time of the accident.
The railroad — which makes six to 10 such deliveries each February and March — typically delivers at night, unhooks the boxcar or boxcars with the product and pushes them from the main rail line to a warehouse on the property. Nickelsen, who didn’t find out about the accident until Thursday morning, said two boxcars were left in the railroad yard about halfway between the main line and the warehouse.
The incident is being investigated by the railroad administration, according to spokesman Warren Flatau, who said the office investigates all deaths of on-duty employees. The investigation began Thursday and is expected to last several months, he said.
Milwaukee-based Wisconsin & Southern operates 700 miles of track throughout south-central Wisconsin and northeastern Illinois. Company officials did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Responding to the scene were the Random Lake Fire Department, Random Lake Ambulance, Plymouth Ambulance and the sheriff’s department.