(The Associated Press circulated the following article on November 14.)
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Federal officials investigating multiple train collisions in the San Antonio area have expressed concern that Union Pacific is understaffed and that the company is not properly supervising workers.
The Federal Railroad Administration was called on by U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to investigate train operations after three wrecks heightened local concerns.
Since then there have been several more incidents in the area, including a derailment Wednesday that killed one man and injured another. Investigators say an engineer didn’t hear a radio transmission to stop backing up a train, which shoved a boxcar into a building.
In a letter last week to Hutchison, the agency said it has closely scrutinized UP this year, especially in the southern region. Findings indicate UP might be hampered by a lack of workers to handle an increase of freight traffic.
Also, railroad managers are missing a lot of employee infractions, and some newer officials don’t know how to correctly spot problems.
“We share your concern regarding recent events in Texas and are working every day to improve the safety of railroad operations in San Antonio and the nation,” FRA Acting Administrator Betty Monro said in the letter.
UP reiterated plans to add jobs in San Antonio as well as throughout the company and to boost training. At least 10 managers have been brought in to help here and a three-month audit of procedures in the area is under way.
“Our safety incentives address those (concerns) in an aggressive way already,” UP spokesman Mark Davis told the San Antonio Express News for its Saturday editions.
When San Antonio leaders meet with Hutchison and federal regulators Tuesday to decide the next step, they’ll be armed with recommendations to mandate hiring of more managers, testing them annually and reducing how many hours trainmen can work a month.
FRA’s recent findings fuel that determination even more.
“It confirms what we’ve been saying for months,” County Judge Nelson Wolff said. “It’s what you would characterize as not a good (railroad) operation.”
Hutchison, who chairs the Senate’s Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Subcommittee, said in a statement Friday that UP’s performance is unacceptable.
“I will continue to work with local and federal officials to make San Antonio rails safe,” she said.
The train wrecks that grabbed San Antonio’s attention and launched FRA’s probe go back six months. The first was in May when a train derailed, injuring three men and spilling 5,600 gallons of diesel fuel along the San Antonio River. Four undamaged cars in the train were carrying highly flammable propane.
A month later, a train smashed into another near Macdona, leaving three people dead and 49 sick or injured, mostly from chlorine gas that spewed from a punctured tank car.
In both cases, FRA suspects that train crews failed to observe or obey signals along the tracks. And fatigue may have played a part in both instances.
In September, a vandal detached a string of cars from a train, and the cars rolled backward and hit another train.