Overhead of accident location with a postaccident inset of the RMM

​Overhead of accident location with a postaccident inset of the RMM. (Source: Google Earth.)

Union Pacific Railroad Contractor Employee Fatality

What Happened

On September 22, 2021, about 2:40 p.m. local time, a W.T. Byler Company contract equipment operator was struck and killed by a suspended load of steel grating material that he was transporting with the boom and stick of a roadway maintenance machine on the Union Pacific Railroad Del Rio Subdivision near Castroville, Texas.

What We Found

​We determined that the probable cause of the September 22, 2021, equipment operator fatality was the use of a roadway maintenance machine to move a load of steel grating panels suspended in front of the machine with a clamping work head attachment that was not designed for use with such a load.

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