2 Killed In Early Sunday Morning Train Head-On Collision In NE AR
Two Union Pacific train crew members are dead and two others are injured after two freight trains had a head-on collision in Hoxie, Ar., a little town in Northeast Arkansas.
Arkansas State Police said the accident happened around 2:30 a.m., with the resulting fire taking roughly seven hours to put out. According to authorities, one of the train’s cargo involved hazardous material, which led them to evacuate 500 people within a one and half mile square radius of the scene. Most residents were able to go back to their homes a little later Sunday morning.
Kendell Snyder, spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, said the fire involved a ruptured tank car with an unknown alcoholic beverage and diesel. Snyder said the train had no other leaks.
Both state and federal investigators are going to spend the week at the train accident to determine why the trains were on the same track.
According to Michael Hiller, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator, the northbound train had two locomotives and 86 freight cars while the southbound train also had two locomotives but 92 cars. According to Union Pacific officials, both trains were carrying toxic chemical cargo.
Hiller said the NTSB has brought together a multi-discipline team to look at every factor in the accident. He said the agency will look at braking, signal data, train operations, track data and how the crew worked the trains. He said the human factor group is set to look at the train crew’s operational performance.
Hiller said the locomotives’ train recorders will give the agency information about the performance: throttle parameters, braking and speed. He said the team has found and shipped the records to their Washington, D.C. lab for examination.
The accident closed a number of roads for quite some time. The ASP said the roadblocks around the Hoxie area are no longer in effect, except for two places:
- Highway 67, south of Highway 63
- Highway 67 at the intersection with Highway 230
These roadblocks will remain in effect for three days so crews can remove the wreckage. The ASP said Highway 91 will stay open so motorists can travel to the Walnut Ridge and Hoxie areas.
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