
The BNSF 9159 Incident.
On April 17th, 2011 at 6:55 AM, 15 Years Ago, BNSF 9159 with BNSF 6133, 132 Coal Cars and DPU BNSF 9226, going 23 MPH, rear-ended BNSF 9470 pulling a MOW BNSF Train in Red Oak, IA.
The Crash derailed both locomotives and 8 Flat Cars caring MOW Equipment, the last 3 derailed Flat Cars destroyed the cab of BNSF 9159 with 4 of them on top of the cab when the train came to a stop and also causing a fire in both locomotives.
Unfortunately, the two crew members in BNSF 9159 died when the collision occurred.
The cause of the collision was because The crew was half awake and half asleep while driving the train, missing a stop signal from the alerter alarm resetting every 2 minutes.
After the crash BNSF 9159 and 6133 were repaired and returned to service, still around today, however 9159 was renumbered 8749, The reason why, I'm not sure and this was one of the only times BNSF renumbered one of there locomotives after it's involvement in a wreck.
BNSF 9470 and 9226 were undamaged since they were far away from the accident, both returned to service and are also still around today.
A side note I want to point out is that, The Black Box Forward Facing Video Camera Footage from BNSF 9159 was destroyed in the crash and fire, which made railroads make sure the black box can survive crashes and won't get damaged.
This crash can also be known as The BNSF 9159 Incident. And it was completely preventable.
If there's anything about this incident that I forgot to mention or got wrong, please let me know.