(AP) – Automated equipment may have contributed to a deadly
head-on train collision in Arkansas by resetting alarms set up to ensure the
crew is alert.
The National Transportation Safety Board meets Tuesday in Washington, D.C., to
discuss a 2014 crash that killed two Union Pacific employees near Hoxie,
Arkansas. The crash has prompted warnings about automated horns on trains with
“electronic alertness devices.”
The NTSB told railroads last year that if a southbound train’s automated horns
had been wired differently, its crew would have been warned at least three times
to stop or slow down before the crash. With the warning system being reset, the
train generated no signal to apply its own brakes automatically.
Beginning Jan. 1, trains operating at speeds above 25 mph must have an
electronic alertness device.
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