At Least 3 Killed as Amtrak Train Collides With Dump Truck in Rural Nevada

Ron Almgren photo courtesey of Reno Gazette-Journal

Amtrak's Westbound California Zephyr was struck at a crossing by a gravel truck in Churchill County, NV on Friday morning at a grade corssing on the Union Pacific mainline northeast of Reno, NV, killing at least three people.

So far 104 passengers have been transported from the scene of a train and tractor-trailer crash in north Churchill County, authorities said.

Both Care Flight and a U.S. Navy helicopter have landed at Renown Regional Medical Center and dropped off patients.

Other passengers have been taken to a Fernley elementary school.

The vehicle that hit the train was a bottom-dumping gravel trasport, said Bob Knoll of the Reno Fire Department.
The train caught fire after the truck hit the second or third passenger car, Knoll said. It appeared the contents of the passenger car were what caught fire.

The Union Pacific, which owns the tracks the Zephyr was operating on was assessing whether or not to open up the paralell former Western Pacific mainline to bi-directional traffic while investigators from the NTSB review the accident scene.

The driver of the gravel truck was also killed in the collision.

UPDATE: A spokesman for the Nevada Highway Patrol said that the crossing where the collision occurred had both flashing lights and arms that raised and lowered whenever a train approached.

Union Pacific, BNSF Threatened With Nuisance Suits From Environmental Extremist Organization 'Natural Resources Defence Council'

Union Pacific's North Yard, Denver, CO: Photo- Chicago Super Chief

A so-called environmental group operating under the moniker of the Natural Resources Defense Council has sent letters threatening a federal lawsuit to two of the Wests largest railroads on Tuesday.

The Natural Resources Defense Council sent letters to Union Pacific Corp. and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, saying it will file a lawsuit within 90 days under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which regulates hazardous solid waste disposal. The letter cited rail yards across California from Oakland to San Bernardino.

In what could be a precedent-setting lawsuit, the council argues that minute particles in diesel air pollution, which include lead, cadmium, nickel and other toxic elements, are solid waste. If successful, such a suit could open the door for legal action against similar air pollution sources such as ports, airports or anywhere with a lot of diesel equipment, [emphasis mine- NANESB!] said David Pettit, a senior attorney with the council.

"I think the reason why other people haven't tried it is on first glance you would think that the emissions are a gas and RCRA doesn't apply to gases," Pettit said. "The fallacy with that is the exhaust has two components: one is a gas and the other component is a solid and those solids will kill you if you inhale enough of them."

The railroads carry cargo throughout the country after it's imported from Asia. Millions of cargo containers on trucks and trains travel by freeway and railway through Southern California.

Southern California air quality regulators recently announced a major study focusing on a San Bernardino rail yard that has been found to pose the greatest health risk of any rail yard in the state. The two-year study will cost an estimated $846,000, and researchers are hoping it will determine if there is a higher asthma and fatal cancer rate in the surrounding community.

The letter recommends a series of remedies for the pollution including the use of cleaner locomotives, electrifying rail lines in urban areas and reduced idling

That last sentence sort of gives away the fact that this threatened lawsuit won't be about the harmful particulates in diesel exhaust, since their suggestion to electrify railroads in urban area would require that a power plant be constructed to provide the lines with electricity. So if they had their way per this threatened lawsuit, they would electrify urban rail lines to prevent diesel exhaust, but what about the air quality around the power source?

And as you can imagine, electrification isn't cheap. Couple that with the upcoming $13 billion PTC mandate that is supposed to be implemented by 2015, and the railroads will inevitably have to to pass the cost along to the consumer.

According to a 2008 American Association of Railroads study, rail freight fuel efficiency had improved 3.1% since 2006 and nearly 85% since 1980, with a ton of freight moving as far as 436 miles per gallon of fuel (as impressive as that is, barges are reportedly even more fuel efficient). Both the Union Pacific [NYSE: UNP] and BNSF have been using genset locomotives in yards and in local service in compliance with local clean air regulations in places like Texas and California.

Also, the railroad industry is one of the few sectors of the economy that seems to be hiring right now. Yet despite all the apparent pluses the rail industry has going for it in this down economy, the NRDC decided to undertake a series of frivolous lawsuits as a trial balloon to go after airports, trucking and shipping- by their own admission.

At face value, if the NRDC chooses to bring this suit to trial it should be laughed out of the courtroom by the presiding judge. However, I would not put it past this cabal of latter-day luddites to effectively shop around for a sympathetic judge to bring the suit before.

The NRDC has also mounted an opposition campaign to TransCanada's [NYSE: TRP] Keystone XL pipeline that would carry oil sands from Alberta to refineries in Texas.

It's probably worth noting that one of the founders of the NRDC, John Bryson, is the current Obama Administration nominee to head the Commerce Department. Bryson left the group in the mid 1970s and after time with Edison International [NYSE: EIX], he became CEO of Brightsource Energy and described by the Wall Street Journal as 'somebody with a talent for scoring government subsidies'.

Today's Train of Though- A Beehive (State) of Activity, May 17 2011

Today's train of thought brings us to a truncated remnant of the old Denver Rio Grande and Western in Utah.

Here, railpictures.net contributor James Belmont caught Union Pacific GP15-1 #Y555 (the 'Y' designates that it's normally assigned to Yard service on UP) leads another GP15-1 and a couple of boxcars as they tiptoe down the jointed rail of the former DRG&W Tintic Branch (now Union Pacific's Tintic Industrial Lead) in Springville, UT on a sunny August 2010 afternoon.

The line was built in stages between 1891 to 1896 from Springville to Eureka, UT (some 40 miles) to access the gold, silver, lead and zinc deposits of the Tintic Mining district. Although as recently as within the past decade the line had traffic from a grain elevator operated by the Church of Latter Day saints as well as limestone traffic, the line had pretty much been cut back to five miles.

Today's Train of Thought- Yellow Streak, Jan 31 2011

Today's train of thought brings us a little splash of color in a wintry Appalachia, as railpictures.net contributor J.B. Lockard catches armour yellow Union Pacific C40-8 leading a Norfolk Southern SD50 still in Conrail paint. The visitor from out west is in charge of Norfolk Southern's Middletown, OH to Williamson, WV coal empties train 81Z on Pocahontas Division at Glen Alum, WV on December 27, 2010.

The leased yellow Dash 8s from out west had been making a number of appearances on Norfolk Southern's lines across the Mountaineer State, breaking up the monochrome of NS's own black and white 'Thoroughbred' paint scheme.

More Borderline Psychosis- Another Mass Jailbreak; Border Patrol Agent Killed; La Familia Michoacan Leader Dead? Not the Drone you're Looking For

TAMAULIPAS: At least 159 inmates in a Nuevo Laredo prison walked out of a service entrance overnight on Thursday in what's being described as the largest jailbreak in Mexico in recent years. Earlier this year, 85 inmates escaped from a prison in Reynosa, Tamaulipas- across the Rio Grande from McAllen, TX. This brings the total number of prison escapees this year to more than 200 just for the state of Tamaulipas.

One police official said that there are indications of complicity on the part of the prison guards and the chief warden for the facility is reportedly missing as well.

Federal police and soldiers were brought in to patrol the area and search for the escapees.

AP Photo- Gustavo Ruiz

MICHOACAN: Nazario 'El Mas Loco' Moreno, the head of the cultlike la familia Michoacan cartel, was reportedly killed in a clash with Mexican Marines and Federal police last week.

Police and military stormed into the town of Apatzingan, near the state capital of Morelia, where Moreno was believed to be hiding. In the ensuing firefight, Moreno and three other La Familia gunmen were killed along with five officers and three civilians. A spokesman for the Federal Police said that the death toll could be higher since some fleeing La Familia gunmen were seen taking their dead and wounded with them.

In response to the raid, La Familia gunmen blocked most of the exits around Morelia with stolen vehicles that were then torched (see above photo).

Although relatively new, La Familia Michoacan is unlike most other criminal organizations in that they have been known to recruit from drug rehabilitation centers throughout Mexico, portrays themselves as Robin Hood-esque defenders of the downtrodden and keeps their members in line with quasi religous indoctrination. This fervor does not prevent them from carrying out brutal murders or torturing opponents, but rather it classifies such activities as 'divine justice'. However, like other cartels, La Familia has been known to engage in human trafficking, extortion and mass production of synthetic drugs like methamphetimines.

NUEVO LEON: A car bomb exploded outside a minicipal police station in suburban Monterrey.
Authorities say that three people were hurt and there was some damage done to the police building and nearby vehicles. This is the second car bombing south of the border this year and is believed to be a warning from one of the cartels.

TEXAS: A Mexican drone crashed into the backyard of an El Paso, TX residence on Tuesday, raising questions about what it was doing in US airspace or which government agency controlled it.

Officials from the Department of Homeland Security returned the downed craft to Mexican officials before the National Transportation Safety Board could inspect it. Depending on the point of impact, the UAV was anywhere from ⅓ to ½ a mile within US airspace when it went down.

ARIZONA: US Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed in a shootout with Mexican bandits in a mountainous area Northwest of Nogales, AZ on Wednesday. Terry was part of a 'BorTac' unit, shorthand for 'Border Tactical'- the Border Patrol's equivalent of a SWAT team charged with interdiction of smugglers and cross-border bandits.

Four suspects were taken into custody at the scene while a manhunt was underway for a fifth. FBI Agents and Santa Cruz County sherriff's deputies were combing the scene for further evidence after the shootout took place.

A Marine Corps veteran and born and raised in Michigan, Agent Terry's fuenral will be held in Detroit.

CHICAGO: The DEA announced the arrests of 7 people and the seizure of 11 tons of marijuana that was smuggled into the USA in six boxcars from Mexico.

Drug sniffing dogs from the Border Patrol first detected the contraband when it crossed the border from Piedras Negras, Coahuila to Eagle Pass, TX in mid-November. From there, it moved to Chicago over Union Pacific rails.

According to the manifest, the shipment consisted of titanium pigments from Jalisco, and the pot was indeed concealed inside industrial 'super sacks'. Law enforcement kept the Chicagoland warehouse listed as the destination under survaillence before making any arrests and seizing the marijuana.

[hat tip- Weasel Zippers, Friends of Ours]

Iron Horse Roundup- October/November 2010 Edition

BBC Photo

INDONESIA: At least 36 people were killed in an October 2nd collision between two trains at the Petarukan station on the island of Java.

Officials believe that a signalling error one one of the trains was what led the Jakarta-Surabaya train to collide with the rear cars of the stopped Semarang-bound train.

That same day, another accident in nearby Solo resulted in at least one fatality.

UKRAINE: At least 43 people were killed when a train collided with a bus packed with commuters in the eastern part of the country on October 12.

Officials from Ukraine's interior ministry said eyewitnesses reported that the bus ignored warning lights and bells from the level crossing in the town of Marhanets in the Dnipropetrovsk region that indicated an approaching train.

All of the fatalities were on the bus.

Doyle Massey

UNION PACIFIC: Aside from it's regularly featured stint of hauling visitors between Denver, CO and Cheyenne, WY for Cheyene's annual Frontier Days, Union Pacific's 4-6-6-4 Challenger #3985 also got to stretch its legs hauling the Ringling Bros. Circus train from Cheyenne southbound to Denver at the end of September. The #3985 then continued on with the scheduled Missouri River Eagle excursion to Kansas City and St. Louis after briefly returning to Cheyenne.

Here, the 3985 is seen racing southbound through Platteville, CO with the circus train on its way to Denver on September 28, 2010.

Cody Zamostny

FT. WAYNE RAILROAD HISTORICAL SOCIETY: The gem of the FWRHS's collection, 1944 Lima-built Berkshire Nickel Plate 2-8-4 #765, has been pretty busy since Labor Day. In September, she was deadheaded over the Norfolk Southern and Wheeling & Lake Erie to Akron, OH where she operated a series of excursions over the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad.

In October, the 765 powered a series of excursions out of Owosso, MI for the Steam Railroading Institute while their own Berkshire- Pere Marquette #1225- is being disassembled for it's 15 year FRA boiler inspection.

Upon completion of her whirlwind tour through the Buckeye and Great Lakes State, the 765 returned to the FWRHS facilities in New Haven, IN where she'll go into storage for the winter.

NORTH CAROLINA: The Aberdeen, Carolina & Western has acquired a pair of former Canadian National, nee Wisconsin Central SD40-3 locomotives for service on it's line between Gulf and Charlotte, NC.

CONNECTICUT: Six cars of an 80 car unit ethanol train derailed in the late night hours of November 9th at the Providence & Worcester yard in Willamantic, CT. The derailment took place within yard limits, which meant that the train was travelling at a slow speed. None of the derailed cars ruptured, and the contents of the tank cars were transloaded from the two that had actually hit the ground. The train had arrived from Rail America-affiliated New England Central and Brattleboro, VT.

There were no injuries and the FRA continues to investigate the cause of the derailment.

NORTH DAKOTA: Officials from the Dakota, Missouri Valley & Western are disputing the FRA's findings regarding a March 2010 derailment in Washburn, ND that killed DMV&W conductor Jeff Heitzmann and injured the train's engineer. The FRA's report stated that an obstructed drainage ditch contributed to that saturation and undermining of the roadbed which in turn sent the lead two locomotives down an embankment.

The DMV&W, however, said that the stretch of track where the derailment took place had been inspected regularly in the weeks prior to the derailment and hasn't been a problem in their nearly 20 years of operating the line between Bismarck and Max, ND. Railroad officials insist that it was an underground spring located some 6 or 7 feel below the roadbed that undermined the track, causing the derailment.