Accident Report Detail

On August 11, 1973, the UMTA state-of-the-art rail rapid transit cars (SOAC's) collided with a standing railroad gondola car at the U. S. Department of Transportation's High Speed Ground Test Center near Pueblo, Colo. The SOAC's were being operated on the transit test track when they were inadvertently diverted through a switch onto an adjacent track and into the gondola. The motorman on the SOAC was killed.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this crash was the failure of a locomotive crewmember to aline a switch properly and the failure of the motorman to detect the open switch in sufficient time to stop the SOAC's short of a gondola standing on the track. Contributing to the accident were the failure of the Transportation Systems Center's representatives (UMTA's systems manager) to implement operating procedures that would secure the intended pathway and the absence of a systematic risk management program at the High Speed Ground Test Center.