(The following story by Walt Bogdanich and Jenny Nordberg appeared on the New York Times website on July 11.)
NEW YORK — Union Pacific has been accused of mishandling evidence not just in crossing accidents but also in employee injury cases and in investigations of wildfires in Oregon that were suspected of having been caused by its trains.
In January 2002, a regional administrator for the Federal Railroad Administration accused Union Pacific of hampering his investigation into worker accidents by failing to turn over records and cleansing medical files.
The year before, a state court judge in Oregon ordered Union Pacific not to interfere with investigations of wildfires after state officials accused the railroad of destroying and withholding evidence of its possible role in two fires. It took about 1,000 people to suppress the fires in August 2000.
Union Pacific’s problems in Oregon stemmed from two wildfires in the Meacham Canyon area.
Investigators believed the fires were ignited by faulty equipment in Union Pacific trains that may have dropped “hot metal debris,” according to court records. In the first fire, investigators secured the area where the fire originated to keep unauthorized people away. But before investigators finished their examination, a Union Pacific train carrying a large magnet entered the secured area, picking up metal fragments, Oregon officials said in court papers.
This made it “impossible to determine which pieces of metal had come from the area of the fire’s origin,” the state said.
After a second wildfire broke out about a week later, state investigators located the Union Pacific train they believed ignited that blaze. But state officials said the railroad “removed a failed braking mechanism and other physical materials” and put them in a pickup truck “lockbox.” Union Pacific then refused to turn over that evidence or guarantee “that these materials would be preserved,” the state said.
The two fires cost about $3 million to suppress. Union Pacific reimbursed the government for most of that expenditure. Kathryn Blackwell of Union Pacific said the company was collecting evidence for its own investigation of the fires and was not trying to obstruct the state’s examination. “We owned up to our responsibility by paying the state and federal governments,” Ms. Blackwell said.
Rod L. Nichols, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Forestry, said that Union Pacific had since been very cooperative in fire-related matters.
The accusations against the railroad in the worker accident investigations were contained in a January 2002 memo, written by Alvin L. Settje of the railroad administration. Mr. Settje wrote that a claims official for the railroad “was extremely reluctant” to provide claims files even when they were subpoenaed.
According to the memo, Union Pacific turned over only 82 of the 130 claims files that had been requested. In addition, Mr. Settje said the claims files that were provided “appeared to have been cleansed of all medical documentation which hindered our audit.”
Union Pacific blamed the incident on the inappropriate behavior of a single employee and said it did not reflect company policy.