By Randy Appleton, Railroad Injury Lawyer in Virginia 

In his latest post to our law firm’s Norfolk Injuryboard blog site, my colleague Rick Shapiro decries a rollback of federal rules requiring rail corporations to install essential train-slowing and -stopping technology. The railroads, despite booking record profits, convinced regulators that protecting rail employees would be too expensive. To read more, click over to “Easing of Positive Train Control Requirement Endangers Railroad Workers.”

EJL

About the Editors: The Virginia- and Carolina-based attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases and of helping victims of rail crossing accidents. Lawyers at our firm have served as chairmen of the railroad section of the American Association for Justice, the largest national victim’s injury attorney organization, and one of our attorneys wrote a major legal encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Be sure to get your free reports about railroad injury, disease and wrongful death FELA cases: The Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). Also, our railroad injury lawyers proudly donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Randy Appleton, Railroad Whistleblower Lawyer in Virginia

In his latest blog post to our Virginia personal injury attorney’s website, my colleague Rick Shapiro reports on a landmark whistleblower case in the railroad injury. For firing a worker specifically for filing a Federal Railroad Safety Act complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, CSX must pay punitive damages for inflicting emotional distress. To read more, click over to “Record Emotional Distress Punitive Damages Award for Wrongfully Terminated CSX Dispatcher.”

EJL

About the Editors: The Virginia- and Carolina-based attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases and of helping victims of rail crossing accidents. Lawyers at our firm have served as chairmen of the railroad section of the American Association for Justice, the largest national victim’s injury attorney organization, and one of our attorneys wrote a major legal encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Be sure to get your free reports about railroad injury, disease and wrongful death FELA cases: The Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). Also, our railroad injury lawyers proudly donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Rick Shapiro, Railroad Employee Wrongful Death Attorney

A yearlong investigation into a fatal rear-end collision on tracks near Red Oak, Iowa (IA), that left two Burlington Northern Santa Fe train crew members dead led the National Transportation Safety Board to conclude that proper scheduling and technology could have prevented the crash or significantly lessened its severity.

View a larger map of where a fatal BNSF train collision occurred near Red Oak,IA.

NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman announced the findings on April 24, 2012. Her agency’s main conclusion was that the collision between the BNSF train and a stopped track maintenance vehicle occurred because the engineer and conductor crewing the moving train had fallen asleep. The two men began their shift at 2:13 am, and the accident happened around 6:00 am. Both had been working on-call schedules and had gone several days without getting adequate sleep.

Hersman went on to note that the rail employees’ fatigue would most likely have not led directly to a fatal crash if their locomotive and rail cars were equipped with positive train control systems. PTC could have automatically slowed the train, reducing the force of the impact, or stopped it altogether.

The NTSB chair also said that that the BNSF accident highlighted the need for rail equipment manufacturers to improve the crashworthiness of modular crew cabs. She promised her agency would be working on those.

In a press release, Hersman said, “Human nature – and our need for sleep – must be respected; it must be addressed. …  Humans are fallible and make mistakes and operational accidents can be prevented with positive train control.”

As a railroad worker injury and wrongful death attorney based in Virginia (VA), I know that PTC has supposed to be coming for all major railroads for some time. I also know that rail corporations — including Amtrak, BNSF, CSX and Norfolk Southern — have been pushing regulators to move back deadlines for PTC implementation. The billion-dollar corporations say installing the safety systems will cost too much. To me, this means the railroads place less value on the health and lives of their employees than required, or even approaching fair in light of the record profits companies like BNSf, CSX and NS have been making for years.

Failing the quick adoption of PTC, I hope BNSF and all other rail operators will at least look at staffing levels and scheduling practices, then make the appropriate adjustments to limit worker fatigue.

EJL

About the Editors: The Virginia- and Carolina-based attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases and of helping victims of rail crossing accidents. Lawyers at our firm have served as chairmen of the railroad section of the American Association for Justice, the largest national victim’s injury attorney organization, and one of our attorneys wrote a major legal encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Be sure to get your free reports about railroad injury, disease and wrongful death FELA cases: The Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). Also, our railroad injury lawyers proudly donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Randy Appleton, Injured Rail Workers’ Attorney

Easter Sunday 2012 dawned badly for two CSX Transportation employees who were hospitalized with nonlife-threatening injuries after their train collided with a derailed car from a Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad coal train in Gary, Indiana. The cause of the initial derailment remains under investigation, but reports indicate that the CSX train hauling shipping containers from Chicago to Bergen, New Jersey (NJ), was unable to stop in time to avoid hitting the hopper that had fallen into its path from a parallel track near a switching yard.

View a larger map of where a CSX train collided with a derailed car from a regional coal train, sending two crew members to the hospital.

Rescue personnel had to cut CSX crew member from the wreckage, and one of the injured workers suffered a broken leg. Both of the hurt workers were released from the hospital the same day, according to the Northwest Indiana Times.

The accident is at least the second major crash involving CSX freight trains in Indiana this year. On January 7, three of the railroad corporation’s trains collided just north of Valparaiso. Officials cited a breakdown in communications among dispatchers and train crews as the main cause of that accident. Track conditions are being eyed in connection with the most-recent wreck.

Whatever investigators determine to be the root causes of the crashes, I know, as a personal injury attorney based in Virginia (VA) who has helped many CSX employees, that those factors will almost definitely be problems that could have been prevented. Rail companies have high duties to maintain safe working conditions for all employees. That means railroad tracks must be kept in proper repair, traffic and weather hazards must be fully and clearly communicated, and appropriate safety equipment and procedures must be in place for workers to use and follow.

If any of those safeguards were not present in either of the Indiana accidents, CSX should be held accountable for both compensating the people hurt and making safety improvements so similar crashes do not recur.

EJL

About the Editors: The Virginia- and Carolina-based attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases and of helping victims of rail crossing accidents. Lawyers at our firm have served as chairmen of the railroad section of the American Association for Justice, the largest national victim’s injury attorney organization, and one of our attorneys wrote a major legal encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Be sure to get your free reports about railroad injury, disease and wrongful death FELA cases: The Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). Also, our railroad injury lawyers proudly donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Randy Appleton, Railroad Injury Lawyer in Virginia

Charles Goetsch, the railroad employment and injury lawyer who helped a wrongfully terminated Metro-North trackman win $1 million in punitive damages against his employer after being fired for reporting an on-the-job injury recently answered questions about the landmark FRSA case. The most important outcome from the March 2012 jury verdict in Connecticut, according to Goetsch, is that allowing railroads to sweep safety issues under the rug by getting rid of workers hurt on the job “needlessly exposes everyone in the community to an increased risk of injury.” To read more of what Goetsch told my Virginia personal injury attorney colleague Rick Shapiro, click over to “$1M Award to Wrongfully Fired Rail Employee a Message to Railroads to Take Safety Seriously.”

EJL

About the Editors: The Virginia- and Carolina-based attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases and of helping victims of rail crossing accidents. Lawyers at our firm have served as chairmen of the railroad section of the American Association for Justice, the largest national victim’s injury attorney organization, and one of our attorneys wrote a major legal encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Be sure to get your free reports about railroad injury, disease and wrongful death FELA cases: The Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). Also, our railroad injury lawyers proudly donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Randy Appleton, Injured Rail Worker’s Lawyer

In his latest blog post to our Virginia (VA) personal injury attorneys’ website, my colleague Rick Shapiro reports on a major whistleblower lawsuit victory for a Metro-North commuter railroad worker who was fired after he reported an on-the-job injury. A jury in Connecticut (CT) awarded the trackman $1 million in damages, determining that the rail corporation had violated the man’s employment rights under the Federal Railroad Safety Act of 2007, or FRSA. To read more, click over to “Jury Awards $1M to Wrongfully Terminated Rail Employee.”

EJL

About the Editors: The Virginia- and Carolina-based attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases and of helping victims of rail crossing accidents. Lawyers at our firm have served as chairmen of the railroad section of the American Association for Justice, the largest national victim’s injury attorney organization, and one of our attorneys wrote a major legal encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Be sure to get your free reports about railroad injury, disease and wrongful death FELA cases: The Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). Also, our railroad injury lawyers proudly donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Rick Shapiro, Injured Rail Employee Attorney

After an Amtrak train collided with a tractor-trailer sitting across tracks near Alpaugh, Calfiornia (CA), the engineer controlling the locomotive went to a hospital for treatment of a back injury. Two passengers also sustained minor injuries and were treated at the scene.

According to KNSF-TV ABC30, the truck’s driver did not see or hear the train approaching as he stopped his big rig at a stop sign near a grade crossing. The trucker also failed to notice a gate lowering across his flatbed trailer, which was still in the train’s path. The engineer tried to slow and sounded his horn to no avail.

While I primarily represent railroad employees who suffer on-the-job injuries in Virginia (VA), North Carolina (NC) and Florida (FL), this train-truck collision caught my attention because of the incident’s similarity to a case my firm handled in 2005. Our client was a CSX conductor trainee who sustained a severe spinal injury when a truck caused a crash on rail yard tracks. She had to abandon her rail career, and we were able to help her recover $650,000 in damages.

Whenever accidents involving large commercial trucks and locomotives occur, injuries or fatalities are practically inevitable. I wish the Amtrak engineer a full and speedy recovery. I also hope the California accident remind all drivers of the dangers they, rail workers and passengers face at crossings.

EJL

About the Editors: The Virginia- and Carolina-based attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases and of helping victims of rail crossing accidents. Lawyers at our firm have served as chairmen of the railroad section of the American Association for Justice, the largest national victim’s injury attorney organization, and one of our attorneys wrote a major legal encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Be sure to get your free reports about railroad injury, disease and wrongful death FELA cases: The Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). Also, our railroad injury lawyers proudly donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Randy Appleton, Virginia Railroad Wrongful Death Attorney

In his latest post to our firm’s Norfolk Injuryboard blog site, my colleague Rick Shapiro expresses his support for the acquittal of a tour bus driver who faced homicide charges in connection with a fatal accident in 2010. Like the judge, Rick believes CSX bears partial responsibility for the wreck that claimed four lives and left many injured. To read the facts of the case and get an explanation of why a railroad should be held liable for a bus wreck, click over to “Hold CSX Liable for Fatal Megabus Accident.”

EJL

About the Editors: The Virginia- and Carolina-based attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases and of helping victims of rail crossing accidents. Lawyers at our firm have served as chairmen of the railroad section of the American Association for Justice, the largest national victim’s injury attorney organization, and one of our attorneys wrote a major legal encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Be sure to get your free reports about railroad injury, disease and wrongful death FELA cases: The Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). Also, our railroad injury lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Rick Shapiro, Railroad Worker Wrongful Death Attorney

Three people died, including two engineers, when the locomotive and all five other cars of a VIA Rail passenger train derailed and flipped in Burlington Ontario, on February 26, 2012. According VIA, which is the Canadian equivalent of Amtrak, the third fatality was a railroad trainee who was riding along to observe.

The Toronto Star, which also noted that a 19-car train derailed in almost the exact same location in 2008, described the latest wreck this way: “The train left the tracks near Plains Rd. and King Rd. When it stopped, six cars lay zigzagged off the tracks, at least three flipped onto their sides and two lodged up against a building. Two cars appeared as though they had been snapped clean apart.”

Reports on the numbers of passengers and surviving crew members are still coming in. The day after the derailment, it was known that at least 45 people had gone to hospitals and that at least 3 of the casualties had been injured so badly they had to be airlifted from the scene.

Officials told the newspaper that track work was under way where the VIA Rail train ran off the rails. They also said the accident occurred while the train was switching from the closed track to an open one.

As a railroad employee injury and wrongful death lawyer based in Virginia (VA), my deepest condolences go out to the families of the train crew members who died in this derailment. I also wish all the injured speedy recoveries.

While it’s much too early to name a specific cause — investigations of rail crashes involving loss of life can take years – I know that ensuring the safety and health of all passengers and workers must always be the highest priority of any railroad corporation. Whatever lessons are learned from this derailment, I hope they are implemented quickly to prevent a similar tragedy.

EJL

About the Editors: The Virginia- and Carolina-based attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases and of helping victims of rail crossing accidents. Lawyers at our firm have served as chairmen of the railroad section of the American Association for Justice, the largest national victim’s injury attorney organization, and one of our attorneys wrote a major legal encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Be sure to get your free reports about railroad injury, disease and wrongful death FELA cases: The Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). Also, our railroad injury lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By Rick Shapiro, Attorney for Railroad Accident Victims

Failure to warn the train’s crew about a track washout, combined with a long-term refusal to fix storm water runoff problems, caused a fatal Canadian National railroad derailment in Cherry Valley, Illinois (IL). Those are the essential findings from a 20-month National Transportation Safety Board investigation into a June 2009 grade-crossing accident that caused an ethanol-fueled fire that claimed the life of one woman trapped in a nearby stopped car and badly burned several other drivers and passengers.

View a larger map of Cherry Valley, IL, where a 2009 CN train derailemnt and ethanol fire killed one and injured several.

Working with the Federal Railroad Administration and the cooperation of CN officials, the NTSB determined that the rail company knew the track had been washed away at least an hour before the deadly wreck and that at least two other storms had taken out the rails at the crossing in Winnebago County near Rockford. The agency recommended that Canadian Railroad and all other rail corporations update and strengthen policies and practices regarding “internal emergency communications, weather-alert policies and rules, tank-car vulnerabilities, inspection and maintenance of storm water detention ponds, the accuracy of train consist information, construction standards for underground pipelines at railroad crossings.”

CN has already settled combined wrongful death and injury claims from one family affected by the derailment for $36.2 million. A spokesman for the railroad also told the Chicago Tribune that his company had completely revised its weather reporting for train crews and addressed design issues at crossings in flood-prone areas. The spokesman also said, “If good things can come out of tragedy, we hope the recommendations are put into place as quickly as possible, and that they help make sure CN’s safety culture gets better.”

The real question, though, is why Canadian National didn’t take action after the previous washouts that didn’t result in tragedy. Or, since it did not, why did the company not act after a similar weather-related accident in Mississippi (MS) in April 2009 — two months before the Illinois derailment.

This blog post from fellow FELA attorney Joseph M. Miller, with whom I have collaborated in cases heard in New Orleans, provides the full details of the Mississippi crash that left an engineer severely injured. It’s worth reading, but I’ll provide the minor spoiler of revealing that CN failed to warn the engineer and other crew members that a storm had knocked a huge tree across the tracks.

NTSB’s recommendations seem particularly appropriate for the passenger and freight rail lines that operate in Norfolk and Newport News, Virginia (VA), where I practice railroad law. The tracks owned and used by Amtrak, CSX and Norfolk Southern are definitely at risk for flooding and damage from the thunderstorms, nor’easters and tropical storms that regularly buffet Hampton Roads. If CN can be taken at its word that the company has already begun implementing changes to protect crews and the public from weather-related accidents, I hope all other rail corporations do the same.

EJL

About the Editors: The Virginia- and Carolina-based attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases and of helping victims of rail crossing accidents. Lawyers at our firm have served as chairmen of the railroad section of the American Association for Justice, the largest national victim’s injury attorney organization, and one of our attorneys wrote a major legal encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Be sure to get your free reports about railroad injury, disease and wrongful death FELA cases: The Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). Also, our railroad injury lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.