WASHINGTON — The failure of the pilot and caption of a tow vessel to correctly identify a caution area on a river chart was the probable cause of a November 2021 collision between the towing vessel Baxter Southern and a BNSF coal train near Galland, Iowa, the National Transportation Safety Board determined in an accident report released Thursday.
During a period of high winds on Nov. 13, 2021, the Baxter Southern pushed its four empty barges against the shoreline of the upper Mississippi near Galland. The bow rake of a forward barge ended up overhanging the rail line and was struck by a 143-car coal train en route from Burlington, Iowa, to West Quincy, Mo. Two locomotives and 10 loaded hopper cars derailed, with six of those cars going into the river. The train’s two crew members suffered minor injuries, and damage to the rail equipment was estimated at $1.9 million. The barge sustained minor scrapes.
The tow vessel sought to push its barges into the riverbank to wait out weather that was forecast to include winds of up to 40 mph, and the crew believed it had chosen an area where it would be safe to do so without interfering with the railroad tracks. Before they could check the clearance, the train approached at a speed of 37 mph, with the train crew making an emergency brake application when it realized the barge was fouling the tracks. The tow pilot also realized a collision was imminent and attempted to reverse the vessel and barges away from the riverbank, but the train and overhang of one barge collided at about 11:43 p.m.
As Trains News Wire noted in the original report of the accident [see “Train collides with barge …,” Nov. 15, 2021], the accident, while unusual, was not unprecedented. Burlington’s Mark Twain Zephyr collided with a barge and derailed near Keokuk, Iowa, on Nov. 16, 1951.
So this has happened before. I seem to have hazy memories this occasionally happened to the NYC Hudson River line every so often.