3 missing, 1 hurt in train collision
Three crew members were missing and one was hurt Tuesday after two freight trains on the same track collided near the town of Panhandle. The fire burned into the night.
DALLAS — Three crew members were missing and one was hurt Tuesday after a head-on train collision in the Texas Panhandle that caused several boxcars to erupt in flames and led authorities to evacuate residents in the area.
The two BNSF Railway freight trains were on the same track when they collided near the town of Panhandle, about 25 miles northeast of Amarillo. Each train carried two crew members; one man jumped before the collision, according to BNSF spokesman Joe Faust.
The man was being treated at a hospital and the extent of his injuries was unknown.
It’s not clear how fast the trains were traveling when they collided, but the speed limit in that area is 70 mph, Faust said. It also wasn’t clear why the trains were on the same track. The rail cars were holding a variety of consumer goods, Faust said.
“I don’t know how anyone survived,” said Billy Brown, a farmer in the area who saw a fireball after the collision. “It’s terrible. I’ve seen a number of train wrecks, but I’ve never seen one like this.”
National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Keith Holloway said the NTSB has opened an investigation, and the Federal Railroad Administration said it has investigators on site.
New technology
Texas Department of Public Safety Lt. Bryan Witt said few other details were available because emergency responders were still assessing the damage. DPS Sgt. Dan Buesing said the fire was still burning Tuesday afternoon. BNSF has pledged to meet a 2018 federal deadline to adopt technology, called positive train control or PTC, that relies on GPS, wireless radio and computers to monitor train positions and automatically slow or stop trains that are in danger of colliding, derailing due to excessive speed or about to enter track where crews are working or that is otherwise off limits. At least three freight railroads have said they’ll need an extension to 2020.
Faust said in a statement later Tuesday that the West Texas collision is the type of accident PTC can prevent and that BNSF is “aggressively” pursuing it “across our network.”
“While sections of the track operated by the eastbound train involved in this accident have PTC installed and are being tested, the section of track where the incident occurred will be installed later this year,” he said in the statement.
Towns evacuated
It’s not unusual to have an accident in Panhandle involving a truck that’s struck by a freight train, Buesing said, but the magnitude of Tuesday’s accident was startling.
Officials in Panhandle ordered an evacuation of some nearby areas out of concern the flames would cause a fast-moving grass fire, the Amarillo Globe-News reported, but Buesing said that residents later returned to their homes and were told to shelter in place and monitor wind conditions.
Officials also asked residents to curtail water use because the water supply is being depleted by firefighters at the scene, according to KVII-TV in Amarillo.