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00:00It's never okay to fall asleep on the job, even if you're a railroad employee on BNSF.
00:06Falling asleep in the capital locomotive can be deadly, and that's exactly what caused
00:10a wreck in Red Oak, Iowa, eight years ago today.
00:21On April 17, 2011, a BNSF coal train passed through McPherson Junction near the town of
00:29Red Oak, Iowa.
00:30The train had two engines in the front, SD70ACE9159, ES44AC6133, 132 loaded coal cars, and a DPU,
00:42which was SD70ACE9226.
00:45Up ahead, parked on the main, was a maintenance-away equipment train.
00:49This was led by a lone SD70MAC9470.
00:529159 East was directed to stop directly behind the maintenance-away train, but instead, the
00:59train proceeded through many red signals.
01:01What's even more odd is that the alerter was reset every two minutes, indicating that
01:07the crew was awake.
01:08However, they must have dozed off because they took no action to stop their train, even
01:13though they could see the tail end of the maintenance-away train directly in front of
01:17them.
01:45The coal train rear-ended the back of the maintenance-away train, going about 23 miles
02:05an hour.
02:06The lead unit, 9159, buried itself under the flat cars, which in turn piled on top of it.
02:12Both the engineer and the conductor were killed, and the accident caused millions of
02:16dollars in damage.
02:18The NTSB determined that although the crew was awake, they were half-asleep, only being
02:23aware enough to reset the alerter every two minutes, and not pay attention to what's ahead
02:28of them on the line.
02:309159 was repaired and put back into service, however, it was renumbered 8749.
02:36The reason for this is unclear, and this marks one of the only times that BNSF has renumbered
02:42one of their locomotives due to its involvement in a wreck.
02:456133 was also repaired, and 9226 was undamaged because it was the DPU in the back of the
02:51train, far away from the accident.
02:54Although railroaders still have odd work schedules, and would like time to find a nice nap, they
02:59should probably do so while they're off-duty.
03:02But it's still sad that the two crew members in the cab of 9159 during the wreck were killed,
03:07because this wreck, which came to be known as the BNSF 9159 incident, was entirely preventable.