[PRCo] Re: The LVT Accident

[Fred Schneider]

After reading the complete 19 page diatribe that Bob Deitrich was so kind as to mail to me and several others, I note that LVT had a policy of using written orders which could supersede green signal aspect.  The southbound freight motor was running extra  in the same block behind a scheduled passenger car, but the lead car did not carry green flags because there was no "second section" according to their definition. The motorman of the passenger car had no knowledge that the freight car was following him and according to the LVT rules;  he had no
reason to know because the freight was Extra C14.
The northbound passenger car was probably displaying green flags because he was running has the first of two sections of a scheduled passenger trip.  The photos I have of the accident show a car so badly mangled that you would not see flags ... after all, the motorman's seat ended up rammed back to the toilet.   But that was not relevant to what happened.  As I suspected in the e-mail copied below, C14 had already left Acorn siding and the signal facing 1003 at Acorn siding was indeed a stop signal.  The motorman of 1003 also had a written order to
wait at Brush for the freight car. He was reminded a second time by the dispatcher  Somehow Harry Strunk screwed up, and left Brush against both the written train order (a copy of which was recorded with his signature) and a stop signal.  Shit happens.

The discrepancy between 11 and 12 killed?  The final twelfth death occurred  in the hospital 4 days after the accident.

For those who want to read yellow journalism at its finest, I would suggest asking Bob for the word file.

Fred Schneider wrote: