NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20594
RAILROAD ACCIDENT REPORT
Adopted: April 28, 1981
HEAD-END COLLISION OF AMTRAK PASSENGER TRAIN NO. 74 AND
CONRAIL TRAIN OPSE-7, DOBBS FERRY, NEW YORK
NOVEMBER 7, 1980
SYNOPSIS
About 4:12 p.m., on November 7, 1980, Conrail freight train OPSE—7 struck the head end of Amtrak train No. 74 while it was standing on track No. 2 at Dobbs Ferry, New York. The lead locomotive unit of train OPSE—7 overrode and destroyed the operating cab of the power car of train No. 74. Of the estimated 234 persons aboard the trains, 75 passengers and 9 crewmembers were injured. Damage to the equipment was estimated at $915,000.
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the failure of the OW operator to apply a blocking device to the signal lever which permitted him to clear the signal and allowed train No. 74 to proceed on an occupied track, and Conrail’s condoning the transmission of train orders without requiring the operator to display the train order signal. Contributing to the accident were the improper training and inadequate supervision of the tower operator, and the failure of Conrail to provide a reasonable means of displaying train order signals at OW. Contributing to the injuries were the design of the seats and lack of emergency evacuation instructions.
INVESTIGATION
The Accident
At 12:30 p.m. on November 7, 1980, westbound Conrail Freight Train Extra 2806 (OPSE-7), consisting of 3 locomotive units, 120 cars, and a caboose, departed the Oak Point Yard, Bronx, New York. At 1:24 p.m., the train entered the Conrail metropolitan region, Hudson Line, at the Melrose (MO) interlocking station. (See figure 1.) At this point, the train came under the direction of the lower Hudson Line train dispatcher. The train continued westward on track No. 1 and approached Spuyten Duyvil (DV) interlocking station at approximately 2:50 p.m. The train dispatchers at Grand Central Terminal, New York City, were changing shifts at the time, and the oncoming dispatcher was notified by the upper Hudson Line train dispatcher that he was not able to take OPSE-7 on the upper Hudson Line because he had two tracks out of service. Work was being performed on track No, 1, and track No. 4 was being used by the track department to unload material. Serious delays to the evening commuter rush hour trains would have developed had the long, slow moving freight train been allowed to continue westward. Confronted with this problem, the lower Hudson Line dispatcher decided to allow OPSE-7 to continue westward on track No. 1 as far as Glenwood, New York, where a remote interlocking controlled by DV was located; back it over from westward track No. 1 to eastward track No. 2; issue a
