Accident Report Detail

On November 11, 1993, about 12:24 a.m. Pacific standard time, a Burlington Northern (BN) freight train collided head on with a Union Pacific (UP) freight train at BN milepost 102.8 south of the Longview Junction South interlocking near Kelso, Washington. As a result of the accident all five crewmembers from both trains were killed.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was (1) the failure of the Burlington Northern crewmembers, for unknown reasons, to see the intermediate signal that would have directed them to stop at the absolute signal and (2) the lack of redundancy in the centralized traffic control system. Contributing to the accident was the lack of a positive train separation control system.