Automatic horn may be behind fatal Arkansas train crash
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Automated equipment may have contributed to a deadly head-on train collision in Arkansas by resetting alarms set up to ensure the crew is alert.
The National Transportation Safety Board meets Tuesday in Washington, D.C., to discuss a 2014 crash that killed two Union Pacific employees near Hoxie, Arkansas. The crash has prompted warnings about automated horns on trains with “electronic alertness devices.”
The NTSB told railroads last year that if a southbound train’s automated horns had been wired differently, its crew would have been warned at least three times to stop or slow down before the crash.