Pecos, TX: If a RR Crossing is Blocked, Look for the Blue Placard

Depot: (Satellite)

Both BNSF crew members died when their locomotive hit a long and heavy load that was stuck on a crossing. Every state should explain in their Rules of the Road what to do if a crossing is blocked. And it should be on the drivers license test. Is it on the Commercial Driver License test? See Craig's post below for details. (Update: all of the reports about the load being stuck for 45 minutes before it was hit seem to be wrong. A news report about a NTSB update said the load was on the tracks just over a minute before it was hit.)

From Craig's photos below

Craig Hensley Photography posted five photos with the comment:

Sad news from Pecos, Texas as a Union Pacific intermodal train stuck a tractor trailer carrying heavy equipement that was stuck on grade crossing. The engineer and conductor were both tragically killed in the subsequent derailment that sent the lead unit off the ground and onto its side. This is a devastating derailement and sadly one that could've been prevented. According to the reports, the truck was stuck on the crossing for quite a while and there was no phone call made to alert the railroad.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

To all my followers, if you ever get stuck on the tracks or witness something like this, please take action! 

Every railroad crossing should have a blue placard located on the crossing signal (see attached pictures) and a phone number to dial in case of an emergency. Do not dial 911 first to alert the railroad, the dispatcher will likely contact local PD for you. Call the number on the placard and this will take you directly to that railroads dispatcher, you can give them ID number of the crossing, and alert them of problem. The dispatcher could've radiod the train and had them come to a stop. One phone call could've saved 2 lives instead of a tragedy right before the holidays.

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Richard Ochoa: That's the lead locomotive, no cab left.

[It looks like the load was a long pressure vessel. The kind that is used in oil refineries. I can't believe that the truck driver of oversized loads was not trained to call the emergency number. And given that almost everyone in the area had a phone in their pocket, including the police, this should not have happened.]

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My experience is that the placard is only on one side of the tracks. So if you can't find it on your own side, look for it on the other side. When I called in to report gates that were staying down even though there were no trains, I was on the side of the tracks that had the placard. If I had been on the other side, I would have had to illegally cross the tracks to report that no one could legally cross the tracks. (All the gates in the downtown area went down at the same time. That was another indication that something was wrong and that the railroad needed to fix it. And that problem precluded the option of walking to another crossing to get across the tracks.)

The depot is now the Area Chamber of Commerce.

Street View, Aug 2014

Judging by the second photo, the left wall of the building got destroyed. I hope no one was in those offices.

Street View, Feb 2013

Roy Reynolds commented on a post: "Understand that this kind of load (overwidth, overlength, overheight, overweight) is directed by the state transportation department as to the route for the permits. The railroad should have been included in the planning. The route is not up to the trucking company. The driver is ultimately responsible for the safety of making each part of the trip. He can say he doesn't think he can make it before hanging up the load."

Mary Kate Hamilton - CBS7 posted eight photos with the comment: "📸 Take a look: Images from the scene of the train derailment in Pecos City, 24 hours after the accident. As you can see, there is still a lot of clean-up to be done. Praying for this town, and the families of the two deceased."

Alberto Concepcion shared

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Keith Kennedy commented on Alberto's share
Just so you know....this is how it's done...

Jentrie Schmidt: Keith Kennedy sorry bud that doesn’t always work. Nice in theory. Glad they helped you. But most of the time you will not get that service.

Update:

safe_image for UP train was traveling 68 mph just before fatal Pecos collision
"Maximum speed on most of UP’s Toyah Subdivision, including in Pecos, is 70 mph."
[The article makes the mistake of calling the oversize load a wind turbine base. It is one thing for the general media to make a mistake like that, but for more specialized media to make that mistake is even more disconcerting. Didn't anybody at Trains look at the photos?]

Christopher Rice: Demethanizer tower for the oil fields.

[I didn't realize that big equipment like that was in an oil field. I presume that a demethanizer removes the gas from the oil before the oil is pumped into a pipeline.]

Thomas Britton: Is 68MPH normal??

Ethan McAllister: Thomas Britton all depends on territory and where it’s at, train make, etc.. Illinois High Speed Rail, Is 110 Amtrak, and 70 for freight!

Sean Reed: Ethan McAllister unless Superliner, then it’s a sedate 100 MPH, but freight is 60.

Dennis DeBruler: Ethan McAllister Another example is that BNSF(former-CB&Q) in the western suburbs of Chicago has track speeds of 70 for passenger (Amtrak and commuters) and 45 for freight unless it is carrying hazardous material, then it is 35. Also, the 110 speed is just for the UP/GM&O route that now has quad gates and fencing. The other Amtrak routes are 79.

In addition to the collision, this video shows how long it took for the train to finally stop piling up cars. It also shows that there was an escort driver who also failed to find the blue placard and call in the blockage of the crossing.

Facebook Reel

1:27 video @ 0:04, cropped

A 3:18 news report video about the cleanup effort. The city manager who was working in the building claims that the front of the building was wrecked. But the photos show that it was the side of the building. One container had lithium batteries and another had air bags. Both were considered hazardous and the have been "contained."

All these cell phones taking videos, but no one called the number on the blue placard. It looks like they may have survived the initial impact, but when the pressure vessel was stopped by the building and the locomotive sustained much more damage.

1:46 news report video @ 0:23

An official in this video said three cars had hazmat waste. So there was disagreement as to what the train was carrying. The videos show that the train was moving right along. (Update: it was 68mph.)

@ 0:49

This video does explain that 45 minutes was 9 times the amount of time needed for someone to find the blue placard and have the train stopped before it got to the crossing. The two locomotives that we see out front were the trailing locomotives. The lead locomotive that had the crew is by the depot with its top peeled off.

2:53 video

Since the locomotive hit the pressure vessel close to one end and since the former-depot was about a block away from the crossing, I'm surprised the locomotive didn't shove the vessel aside before it passed the depot. That may have saved the lives of the crew. The building was the former Texas and Pacific depot. We were lucky that people were not in that parking lot or the park east of the depot!

Satellite

I still don't understand why that load wasn't shoved to the side. How did the load remain sticking out to the side as it was shoved down the track? This report says that the load got stuck just over a minute before the impact. So why did we see so many reports of a 45 minute delay?

1:31 video at 0:14