Coal train that crashed into house was going twice posted speed Source: Associated Press

Publication date: Jan 31, 2000

&BLOOMINGTON, Md. (AP) -- A CSX coal train was running downhill at more than twice the recommended speed when it derailed and crashed into a house at about 55 mph, killing a 15-year-old boy, a federal investigator said Monday.

Investigators will interview crew members and use computer simulation to determine why the 80-car train was going so fast Sunday and what caused the derailment, said Russell Quimby, a rail safety engineer with the National Transportation Safety Board.

He said the investigation will focus on the three-member crew, weather conditions and possible brake failure or other mechanical problems.

It was snowing early Sunday morning when 76 coal hoppers derailed along 2.4 miles of track near the Maryland-West Virginia border, about 130 miles west of Baltimore. The train was coming down Backbone Mountain on a 17-mile, 2.4 percent grade that is one of the steeper railroad grades in the Eastern United States.

The stretch has a recommended speed of 25 mph, Quimby said. He said the 55 mph estimate came from a preliminary reading of data recorders on the three locomotives pulling the train. The recorders will be sent to an NTSB laboratory in Washington for confirmation, he said.

The train was carrying coal from the Sentinel Coal Co. mine near Philippi, W.Va., to a [Potomac Electric Power Co.] plant near Washington, D.C., Quimby said.

The crew included an engineer with about 30 years of experience, a conductor with about 20 years of service and a conductor trainee, CSX Transportation Co. spokeswoman Kathy Burns said.

Quimby said he planned to interview them Tuesday.

As workers Monday removed wreckage and coal piled nearly 20 feet deep, residents mourned Eddie Lee Rogers, whose body was recovered Sunday night from the crushed living room of his two-story wooden house.

His mother, Libby A. Holstein, 35, was in serious condition at Cumberland Memorial Hospital with a broken leg and facial injuries. Her daughter, her boyfriend and his daughter were not seriously hurt, nor were the train's three crew members, officials said.

Publication date: Jan 31, 2000 ) 1999, NewsReal, Inc.

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-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 01, 2000

Answers

Thaks for the update Carl.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), February 01, 2000.

dittos, rush--i mean, carl

-- boop (leafyspurge@hotmail.com), February 02, 2000.