ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 30, 1996 TAG: 9604010003
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
A FEDERAL ARBITRATOR reinstates crew members involved in a 1995 collision.
Four Roanoke train crew members, fired by Norfolk Southern Corp. last year after a collision at Radford, have been reinstated to their jobs by a federal arbitrator.
Three of the crew members - a brakeman, a conductor, and an engineer-trainee - have returned to work in the past month, NS spokesman Bob Auman confirmed.
Investigative reports of the collision by federal transportation agencies are expected within a few days.
The train's engineer, Richard Slusher, broke his back in the accident when he jumped from the train; he has not returned to work. Slusher, 45, has been collecting Railroad Retirement Board disability benefits.
NS did not identify members of the train crew. Slusher came forward on his own, saying it was important that the accident's cause be brought to light.
In firing the four workers, the railroad maintained that they drove their train through two signals telling them to halt until another train had passed. The workers were suspended immediately and were fired after NS completed its investigation last year.
The workers and their unions, however, said the crash was caused by a failure of the NS signaling system, not by the crew members. David Benson of the United Transportation Union, which represents some of the workers, revealed last year that polygraph tests and other evidence supported their contention that the signal failed.
The railroad said the signals were tested following the wreck and found to be in working order. Slusher, however, points out that Norfolk Southern refused to allow an electrician hired by the union to examine the signal after the accident.
Last week, an incident occurred on the same Bristol-Roanoke main line as the Radford wreck, which Slusher believes may support the fired train crew's contention that a signal failure caused their accident. A signal malfunctioned near Wytheville, giving an eastbound train crew the go-ahead even though a westbound train was still moving from the main line onto a siding about a mile away.
In this case, the crew of the eastbound freight suspected something was wrong, stopped the train and averted an accident, said David Brown, superintendent of Norfolk Southern's Virginia Division.
At Wytheville, an inspection discovered a malfunction in the signal, Brown said.
Jim Dunn, chief of regional investigations for the National Transportation Safety Board, agreed that signal failures, giving a train crew false permission to move forward, are rare, saying he had heard of only one other instance in his nearly 30 years of association with railroading.
The NTSB's investigation of the Radford accident has been completed and should be released as soon as it gets final administrative approval within the agency, Dunn said.
A separate report by the Federal Railroad Administration about the accident should be ready for release as early as next week, said Dave Myers, deputy regional administrator for the FRA in Philadelphia.
Myers said that his recollection of the FRA's preliminary findings is that a signal failure was not involved in the accident.
The train crew's arbitration case against NS has not been resolved completely.
A letter dated Feb. 2 from arbitrator Irwin M. Lieberman of Connecticut to a vice president of Slusher's union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and to Kenneth J. O'Brien, the NS director of labor relations, orders Slusher's reinstatement. Lieberman said, however, that he would deal with other issues, including the claim for back pay "when the entire award is issued, in due course."
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