(The following story by Patrick Driscoll appeared on the San Antonio Express-News website on April 19. Terry Briggs is Chairman of the BLET’s Texas State Legislative Board.)
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Federal officials probing June’s deadly train crash in South Bexar County will grill Union Pacific on how it manages employees, including handling fatigue and testing for drugs and alcohol.
The National Transportation Safety Board has scheduled a two-day public hearing in Washington that will start April 26.
The hearing will focus on human error, a suspected cause of the June 28 wreck in which a UP train slammed into a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train. Four locomotives and 35 cars derailed, including a tank car that spewed chlorine gas.
Four people died from inhaling the poisonous fumes and about 50 were injured.
Among witnesses called to testify at the hearing are representatives of UP, the Federal Railroad Administration, the United Transportation Union and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.
“I’m sure we’ll be able to talk about their concerns,” said UP spokesman Mark Davis.
Union representatives are ready to discuss problems with chronic fatigue, said Terry Briggs, chairman of the Texas legislative board of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.
“Everybody experiences fatigue at some time,” he said.
Federal law requiring eight to 10 hours rest between train trips doesn’t allow enough time for getting to and from home, eating, bathing and sleeping, Briggs said.
Also, sleep can be disturbed by a call — up to three hours before a rest period ends — to come back to work.
Another problem is imprecise scheduling of trains, which can keep crews waiting and awake for hours before starting a work shift, he said.
“A person can be in compliance with the law and still be tired,” Briggs said.
Fatigue may have played a part in the wreck, FRA officials said in a letter late last year to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.
The UP engineer failed to apply brakes despite passing two yellow warning signals, officials said in the days after the collision.
The engineer, who was injured, was dismissed from his job a couple of months later but UP officials declined to say why.
Also, the conductor, who died, had a slight amount of alcohol in his blood though not enough to be under the influence, FRA officials reported.
The FRA launched an investigation of UP operations last year and cited concerns about the company being understaffed and not properly training workers. Railroad officials signed a one-year agreement in November to fix the problems.
County officials said the hearing’s emphasis on human factors appears to be on target.
“Those are great issues,” said Seth Mitchell, chief of staff for the county judge. “Those are the kind of issues that we raised as well.”