Guest post by William Russ.
BACKGROUND
It’s August 1943 and you are the General Chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers on Lines West. The war has been raging for nearly two years and with that has come unprecedented traffic levels. With all those trains came a corresponding increase in accidents. That’s made your job a lot harder in that whenever you approach management on behalf of your members, they start in on you with a list of accidents caused by rule violations.
THE CASE OF ENGINEER RENN
Now comes Robert Renn, Idaho Division engineer. He seeks reinstatement after having been dismissed from service. Renn was engineer on the Moses Lake local when, on August 4th, his engine was sideswiped by a westbound passenger extra at Warden’s west switch.
Members of this group may recall that just past midnight on that fateful day, the local was heading back to Othello after completing its work on the branch. They picked up 5 cars of grain at Warden and received orders to run extra to Othello. The local proceeded to the west end of Warden’s siding where the head brakeman climbed down to line the main line switch. In the seconds before that happened, the passenger extra passed the last block signal that would have otherwise gone red on account of this switch being thrown. Only then did the crew on the local realize the passenger train was bearing down on that switch, but it was too late to avert the two locomotives from sideswiping each other. Tragically, 10 soldiers riding on the extra were killed in this wreck.
Renn has written a letter to you proclaiming his innocence and makes the following points in his own defense:
• The engine crew on the local had no orders regarding the passenger extra.
• The conductor mentioned “a special is coming” and “they should look out for it.”
• The conductor did not instruct his engineer to wait at Warden until the special had passed.
• The Company has “always wanted this (local) to get back to Othello ahead of No. 15” so its passengers, mail and express can be transferred onto it.
• “Time and again” No. 15 was waiting at Warden with orders for the local to run ahead of it west to Othello.
• The Conductor perjured himself when he testified that he told his engineer to “stay in the clear” until the special went by.
• The Dispatcher testified it “was more important to get (the local) to Othello than the special was.”
• It was routine for the head brakeman on the local to check the eastbound signal at Warden’s west switch and, if it was clear, walk back to throw the switch, wait 2 minutes and go.
• If the eastbound signal was red then it was normal procedure to “whistle out a flag.”
• The local over-ran the fouling point by one car length and could not reverse the move in time.
• Warden’s west switch can be thrown regardless of the position of the signals there.
• If the local had orders to let the special by then they would have “stayed in the clear.”
• The previous Conductor on the local would always tell the head end a train was coming and they would watch for it from the rear end and he would “give me a signal or would pull the air; then I would know the train is in sight and I would not let the brakeman throw the switch.”
Engineer Renn had a spotless record up until this incident. It is your informed opinion the Company is equally at fault here for the way it’s been operating its railroad. In this case and others, engineers were getting a lot of help from Railroad officials in violating rules, by “winking their eye” at some infraction so long as nothing bad happens and it expedites the movement of trains.
QUESTION: If you can show the Company was at fault somehow then that could go a long way toward getting Robert Renn reinstated. What valid claim can you make to show the Company played a considerable role in the deadly wreck at Warden?
HINT: Renn described his orders in his letter to you. What role did those orders play in this incident? Could some omitted order(s) have prevented this tragedy?
Photo and caption from the Spokesman-Review, August 5, 1943
David Sprau:
This certainly seems to be a plausible case for reinstatement, perhaps even with record cleared and pay for lost time, BUT there are two sides to these kinds of stories and events. My previous understanding of how this happened seemed to involve some actual rules violations. But I can't remember the specifics. Before saying more, I would want to see the actual orders held by the train, and read the investigation transcript. For sure it is possible a brakeman could do something bad, for which a hapless engineer couldn't do a single thing about, in the short time involved.
William Russ:
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: I don't have the transcript of the Milwaukee investigation. I have access to a condensed ICC investigation report for this accident but it makes no mention of the orders given to the local. Here's an excerpt from that report: "The conductor of Extra 849 said he received information from the operator at Warden about 12:45 a.m. that Passenger Extra 251 would pass Warden about 12:50 a.m. He said he expected his train to move westward on the siding but to remain into clear until Passenger Extra 251 passed, and he instructed his crew accordingly. The conductor and the flagman were on the rear car, and the front brakeman and the enginemen were on the engine. The employees on the engine said they misunderstood the instructions of the conductor and they thought their train was to proceed ahead of Passenger Extra 251. Extra 849 proceeded westward on the siding and when the engine reached a point a short distance east of the west siding-switch, the front brakeman got off the engine and ran toward the switch to line it for movement to the main track. Soon afterward the fireman saw the approaching train and called a warning to the engineer, who immediately reversed the movement in an unsuccessful attempt to back the train into clear. The flagman said he gave signals for Passenger Extra 251 to stop when he became aware that his train had fouled the main track, but this action was not taken in time to prevent the accident."
David Sprau:
William Russ OK, something that is sticking out here. No matter what kind of hand signals or other instruction he is receiving, I do not think the engineer of 849 should have passed the fouling point on the siding until Rule 513 had been complied with. Under the 1939 Rule book, our "five minute rule 513" was only a two-minute rule, but still, the train should have laid back of the fouling point, opened the switch, and then waited for a full two minutes to see if anything was showing up on the main track, BEFORE the head brakeman gave a proceed signal. The engineer's responsibility is mixed up in this. He must assure himself that the brakeman has waited the full two minutes before taking his engine past the fouling point. If he isn't sure, it is his responsibility to either find out, or to do his own checking by counting off the minutes after he knows for sure that switch is open. Anything less than that is an invitation for what happened, to happen. It appears to me that the fouling point was passed before the engineer knew for sure that two mnutes had elapsed after the main track switch was opened. Am I missing something? ++ Also FWIW I should mention that this affair has nothing at all to do with the superiority of trains, or the relative importance of trains, nor who wants what train into Othello first. This is a basic issue of whether or not the rules were fully complied with before opening a switch and then fouling it or fouling the main track. It smells to me like there was not 100% compliance with proper requirements by people upon whom that responsibility falls, which include this engineer who otherwise deserves credit for making a very well laid out case for leniency at the least; but unless it is addressed in the various inquiry transcripts we probably never will know for sure whether he was 100% blameless for this sad affair. +++ Also FWIW Roy Craig. Jr., told me he was a brakeman on extra 251 west; and after observing the rather unpleasant aftermath including one victim hanging dead, out a busted window, told a porter "Please get a blanket or a sheet and cover that boy over." Exact quote.
William Russ:
Couple more interesting bits of information on this. In this letter to Engineer's General Chairman J.B Daubenspeck, one of his local chairmen is advancing the argument the Company should have given the passenger train orders to run ahead of the local. Instead, both the extra and the local were given essentially the same order to run extra, Warden to Othello. If that's the case then the first train to enter the block would get to go to Othello first. The tragic result of that contest was neither train would ever get to Othello that morning. This correspondence also suggests the passenger train had some kind of schedule to maintain, yet it was run as an extra. Here a bit of that:
William Russ:
There is also evidence of a cover-up. At the Company's formal investigation, Union representatives asked questions on the subject of the instructions for the local to wait at Warden for the passenger to pass before proceeding west to Othello. This message never made it to the engine crew on the local. In this passage the Dispatcher on duty in Tacoma is being cross-examined by the representative of the engineer on the local:
William Russ:
Reportedly, this exchange is not in the transcript because the Company deemed it "irrelevant." Engineer Renn's union representative suspecte either 1) the message was incerted into the order book after the accident or 2) the dispatcher forgot to send it.
