NTSB releases preliminary report on fatal CSX, Amtrak incident

The National Transportation Safety Board has released a preliminary report on the June 27 incident in Washington, D.C., in which two CSX employees were struck and killed by an Amtrack train.    The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released its preliminary report on the fatal rail incident that occurred June 27 in Washington, D.C.
   Two CSX employees, a conductor and a conductor trainee, were struck and killed by an Amtrak train traveling at about 73 mph on Amtrak’s track 3 near Union Station.
   According to the the NTSB report, “The two employees were returning to their locomotive on their southbound train after inspecting a reported defective rail car. They had their backs to the approaching Amtrak train when they were struck.”
   The report states that the Amtrak engineers began sounding their horns when they saw the CSX employees on the track. However, an additional Amtrak train was traveling in the opposite direction at the same time the CSX employees were struck. 
   The two employees were inspecting overheated bearings or wheels on their train, after a CSX dispatcher told the crew that a wayside defect detector recorded a suspect axle. The crew then “set the defective car out of the train using the crossover switches between tracks 1 and 2,” pulling the front of the train partially through the crossovers, according to the NTSB report.
   The front of the CSX train was then adjacent to the Amtrak track and the employees were struck near the end of the first car, 350 feet from the locomotive, the report stated. 
   The NTSB report notes that the CSX conductor’s supervisor drove to the train’s location to assist with the defect detector issues. The report states that the supervisor was in his vehicle near the tracks across from the CSX train when the accident occurred.