1987 — Jan 4, Amtrak 94 rear-ends Conrail ENS-121 freight train, Chase, MD — 16

— 16  Collins. “Twenty Year Anniversary of Amtrak Crash,” WJZ/AP, Jan 4, 2007.

— 16  NTSB. RAR. Rear-End Collision of Amtrak Passenger Train 94…, 1-25-1988, p. v.

— 16  OJP, DOJ.  Community Crisis Response Team Training Manual: 2nd Ed. (Appendix D).

— 16  Wikipedia.  “1987 Maryland Train Collision.”

— 16  Wikipedia.  “List of Rail Accidents (1950-1999).”

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Narrative Information

 

NTSB Executive Summary: “About 1:16 p.m., eastern standard time, on January 4, 1987, northbound Conrail train ENS-121 departed Bay View yard at Baltimore, Maryland, on track 1. The train consisted of three diesel-electric freight locomotive units, all under power and manned by an engineer and a brakeman. Almost simultaneously, northbound Amtrak train 94 departed Pennsylvania Station in Baltimore.[1] Train 94 consisted of two electric locomotive units, nine coaches, and three food service cars. In addition to an engineer, conductor, and three assistant conductors, there were seven Amtrak service employees and about 660 passengers on the train.

 

“At this time, the Edgewood block station operator requested that switch 12 at Gunpow, a remote-controlled interlocking, be lined for straight through movement for train traffic on track 2, on which Amtrak train 94 was operating. The wayside signal aspects displayed for train 94 approaching Gunpow on track 2 were ‘clear’ at both the distant (81-2) and home (2N) signal locations, and the wayside signal aspects displayed for train ENS-121 on track 1 was ‘approach’ at distant signal 816-1 and ‘stop’ at the home signal 1N. Automatic control systems in both trains should have displayed aspects corresponding to those of the wayside signals, except that the cab signals of train ENS-121 should have displayed a ‘restricting’ aspect beginning 4,450 feet south of signal 1N.

 

“About 1:30 p.m., Conrail train ENS-121 entered switch 12 onto track 2 causing the switch to realign for movement from track 1 to track 2. When train ENS-121 entered switch 12, the aspect of signal 2N for track 2 changed from ‘clear’ to ‘stop.’ The engineer of train 94 apparently recognized that the aspect of signal 2N was ‘stop’ and put his train into emergency braking. However, the train was traveling between 120 and 125 mph and could not be stopped before colliding with train ENS-121. The engineer and 15 passengers aboard train 94 were fatally injured; 174 other persons aboard the trains received minor to serious injuries. The rear Conrail locomotive unit, both Amtrak locomotive units, and the head three passenger cars were destroyed. The middle Conrail locomotive unit was heavily damaged, and the rear nine cars of the passenger train sustained varying degrees of damage.

 

“The Safety Board’s investigation of this accident focused on a number of issues relating to the safety of train operations on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. Among these issues are:

 

  1. the performance of trains’ crewmembers, including pre-departure tests and their operation of the trains and the possible impairment from the use of drugs of the Conrail train crew;

 

  1. the adequacy of the signal and safety backup systems;

 

  1. Amtrak’s dispatching and management concern with on-time performance;[2]

 

  1. the compatibility of freight trains with high-speed passenger trains in a high-density train environment;

 

  1. the quality of Amtrak and Conrail supervisory oversight of corridor operations;

 

  1. the FRA’s oversight of the corridor improvements, the operating practices of Amtrak and Conrail, and the implementation of the drug and alcohol testng rules and other safety regulations;

 

  1. the adequacy of the emergency response; and

 

  1. the crashworthiness of Amtrak’s passenger-car interiors.

 

“The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the failure, as a result of impairment from marijuana, of the engineer of Conrail train ENS-121 to stop his train in compliance with home signal 1N before it fouled track 2 t Gunpow, and the failure of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and Amtrak to require and Conrail to use automatic safety backup devices on all trains on the Northeast Corridor.

 

“Contributing to the accident were: 1) the failure of the brakeman of ENS-121 to observe signal aspects and to alert the engineer when they became restrictive; 2; the failure of the crewmembers of train ENS-121 to make the required automatic cab signals (ACS) test; 3) the muting of the ACS alerter whistle on the lead unit of train ENS-121; and 4) the inadequacies of the FRA oversight of Amtrak’s and Conrail’s supervision of corridor trains….” [pp. v.-vi.]

 

“Operation of Amtrak train 94 at 125 mph, rather than its restricted speed of 105 mph, contributed to the severity of the accident.

 

“The Accident….There was no radio communication from either train before the collision…[p.4]

 

“….Thirteen of the fatally injured passengers were aboard the second car of train 94; the others were aboard the third car.” [p. 5.] ….” (NTSB. Railroad Accident Report. Rear-End Collision of Amtrak Passenger Train 94, the Colonial and Consolidated Rail Corporation Freight Train ENS-121, on the Northeast Corridor, Chase, Maryland, January 4, 1987 (NTSB/RAR-88/01) Washington, DC: NTSB 1-25-1988, 222 pages.) Thus there are over 200 pages following.

 

OJP DOJ: “Baltimore County, (Harewood Park, Oliver Beach, West Twin River) Maryland – January 4, 1987. Amtrak/Conrail train crash kills 16 people and injuries 176.”

 

Wikipedia: “The Maryland train collision occurred at 1:04 pm on January 4, 1987, on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor main line in the Chase community in eastern Baltimore County, Maryland…at Gunpow Interlocking, about 18 miles (29 km) northeast of Baltimore. Amtrak train 94, the Colonial (now part of the Northeast Regional, from Washington, D.C., to Boston), crashed into a set of Conrail locomotives running light which had fouled the mainline. Train 94’s speed at the time of the collision was estimated at about 108 miles per hour. Fourteen passengers on the Amtrak train were killed, as well as the Amtrak engineer and lounge car attendant.

 

“The Conrail locomotive crew failed to slow down at the signals before Gunpow, and it was determined that the accident would have been avoided had they done so. Additionally, they tested positive for marijuana.  The engineer served four years in a Maryland prison for his role in the crash.  In the aftermath, drug and alcohol procedures for train crews were overhauled by the Federal Railroad Administration, which is charged with rail safety.  In 1991, prompted in large part by the Chase Maryland crash, the United States Congress took even broader action and authorized mandatory random drug-testing for all employees in “safety-sensitive” jobs in all industries regulated by the Federal Department of Transportation including trucking, bus carriers and rail systems. Additionally, all trains operating on the high-speed Northeast Corridor are now equipped with automatic cab signaling with an automatic train stop feature.

 

“At the time, the Baltimore County train wreck was Amtrak’s deadliest crash in the company’s history. In 1993, however, the wreck at Big Bayou Canot in Alabama resulted in a much larger death toll.” (Wikipedia.  “1987 Maryland Train Collision.”)

 

Wikipedia: “January 4, 1987 – 1987 Maryland train collision, Chase, Maryland, United States: The Amtrak Colonial express train, highballing at 130 miles per hour (210 km/h), slammed into a consist of Conrail freight locomotives whose engineer had ignored a stop signal and had fouled the Northeast Corridor mainline at Gunpow Interlocking. The force of the impact completely destroyed the lead Amtrak locomotive and derailed the rest of the train, killing the Amtrak engineer, a lounge car attendant and 14 passengers. The subsequent investigation revealed that the in-cab signaling system of the Conrail lead locomotive was inoperative and that the Conrail crew had been smoking marijuana. This notorious accident, Amtrak’s most deadly at the time, caused the US railroad industry to tighten up drug use detection among operational personnel and subsequently led to the federal certification of locomotive engineers.”  (Wikipedia. “List of Rail Accidents (1980-89).”)

Sources

 

Collins, Suzanne. “Twenty Year Anniversary of Amtrak Crash,” WJZ/AP, Jan 4, 2007. Accessed at: http://wjz.com/topstories/amtrak.train.crash.2.424838.html

 

National Transportation Safety Board. Railroad Accident Report. Rear-End Collision of Amtrak Passenger Train 94, the Colonial and Consolidated Rail Corporation Freight Train ENS-121, on the Northeast Corridor, Chase, Maryland, January 4, 1987 (NTSB/RAR-88/01) Washington, DC: NTSB 1-25-1988, 222 pages. Accessed 11-15-2016 at: http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/RAR8801.pdf

 

Office of Justice Programs, United States Department of Justice. Community Crisis Response Team Training Manual: Second Edition (Appendix D: Catastrophes Used as Reference Points in Training Curricula). Washington, DC: OJP, U.S. Department of Justice. Accessed at:  http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/publications/infores/crt/pdftxt/appendd.txt

 

Wikipedia. “1987 Maryland Train Collision.” 1-26-2016 update.  Accessed 11-15-2016 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_Maryland_train_collision

 

Wikipedia. “List of Rail Accidents (1980-89).” 10-28-2016 modification. Accessed 11-15-2016: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_accidents_(1980%E2%80%9389)

 

 

[1] As is usually the case, the passenger train (Amtrak 94) had precedence over a freight (Contrail ENS-121). P. 4.

[2] Amtrak 94 departed Baltimore about 5½ minutes late. (NTSB 1988, p. 4.)