Teamsters Canada Rail Conference

BLET Safety Task Force deployed

CLEVELAND, October 2 — Five train crew members were injured on September 30 following a head-on collision between two Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range (DMIR) freight trains in Two Harbors, Minn. BLET Safety Task Force member Daniel Lauzon is assisting the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) with its investigation.

The accident happened around 4:05 p.m. CDT on September 30. BLET National Secretary-Treasurer Bill Walpert, who serves as Director of the Safety Task Force, said the BLET has been granted party status to help the NTSB determine potential causes of the accident.

On Thursday night, a Canadian National Railway spokesman said that two of the five crew members were being treated and expected to be released from a local hospital in Two Harbors. The other three remained in Duluth hospitals, he said.

All of the trains in the derailments were operated by the DMIR,which is a U.S. subsidiary of Canadian National.

Carl Fields, Coordinator of the BLET Safety Task Force, said the crash occurred at about 4 p.m. local time, about 30 miles from Duluth near the Boomers Railroad Crossing, near Lake County Highway 2. One train with empty iron-ore cars was heading north, away from Two Harbors, while the other train was loaded with taconite and heading south on the same stretch of track.

The train heading north had three locomotives and was pulling 118 empty cars at the time of the crash. As the two trains hit each other, one locomotive in the northbound train derailed, but they all remained upright. Behind them, five empty cars spilled off the tracks in an S-shape — two on one side and three on the other side of the tracks, with one car completely on its side. The train had just rounded a gradual western bend.

The BLET Safety Task Force (STF) was established by the BLET as the first union-based accident investigation team in the railroad industry.

The STF was organized to contribute to both the accident cause-finding phase, and the safety recommendation phase from the view point of locomotive engineers and trainmen.

The STF hotline number is: (800) 306-5414

Further updates will be available on the BLET website, www.ble-t.org.

(The Duluth News-Tribune contributed to this report.)