WASHINGTON — The failure of an operator to stop a tie tamping machine — with the operator admitting he was in a panicked state because the machine did not appear to stop when he expected — led to the death of a track worker struck by the tamper, the National Transportation Safety Board determined in an accident report released Thursday.
The accident occurred on the Union Pacific near Vail, Ariz., at about 12:40 p.m. on Jan. 31, 2021. The worker struck by the machine — part of a track gang of about 50 people and 23 pieces of equipment performing tie replacement and track surfacing — was airlifted to a hospital where he later died of his injuries.
The track machine involved operates using a joystick, which is pushed forward to move forward; when the joystick is released, propulsion stops and brakes are applied. In an interview with investigators, the operator said he “let go of the joystick in going forward position and it seemed like it didn’t stop to me. That’s when I started panicking.” The operator was unsuccessful in pulling the horn cable to warn the worker ahead of him and failed to hit the emergency stop button; he finally stopped the machine by pulling the joystick into the work cycle and dropping the tamper workheads into the ballast. The victim was found under the machine.
In subsequent testing, the machine operated as intended, stopping properly with our without use of the emergency brake.
Union Pacific responded to the accident by instituting additional stop-distance testing for equipment operators, and earlier this year told the NTSB it had found that testing beneficial and it would continue in 2022.
