GOODWELL, Okla. — Two freight trains that collided in an Oklahoma wheat field weren’t blowing their horns or flashing their lights as they hurtled toward each other, according to a long-haul trucker who watched helplessly from a highway as the locomotives collided headon.
Three of the four crew members assigned to the trains were missing Monday, and investigators feared they couldn’t have survived the crash and tremendous fire.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined that one of the trains failed to take a sidetrack and give the other locomotive the right of way, board spokesman Mark Rosekind said Monday night. He declined to say which train was on the wrong track, but said no malfunction was found in the signals that guide the trains.
The accident happened Sunday just after an eastbound Union Pacific train carrying mixed goods from Los Angeles to Chicago passed through the town of Goodwell at a good clip. A mile east of town, it hit a westbound Union Pacific train hauling cars and trucks.
The resulting diesel fireball and black smoke could be seen for miles across the flat, arid landscape. One crew member suffered scrapes and bruises after jumping from the westbound train as it traveled alongside U.S. 54 about eight miles southwest of Guymon.
Truck driver Gary Mathews,hauling freight from Phoenix to Missouri, had been running evenly with the train at 68 mph and looked ahead to see another train on the same track.
“I was thinking, ‘I’m going to see a train crash unless somebody does something,’” Mathews of Independence, Mo., said Monday. “They’re not blowing the horn to each other, blinking lights or whatever. I kept thinking, ‘This cannot happen, it cannot happen.’”
The Union Pacific railroad has sidings at Guymon and Goodwell but only a single track runs the 11 miles between the two communities about 330 miles northwest of Oklahoma City.
“One train had the right of way. We’re still getting the data to figure out what was scheduled to happen. There was a sidetrack and we’re trying to figure out what was supposed to be where, and when,” Rosekind said. Investigators hadn’t yet been able to search the wreckage for any bodies.
“They have to let the metal cool ... to see if they can get in there and find the bodies of the missing, and that may never happen,” said Betsy Randolph, a trooper with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
Firefighters did what they could to cool the freight cars, and a crew was dispatched from Fort Worth to smother the flames with foam.
Information for this article was contributed by Justin Juozapavicius, Ken Miller and staff members of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 06/26/2012