On August 5, 2025, about 12:11 a.m., a BNSF Railway (BNSF) conductor was seriously injured in a raking collision between a moving train and standing railcars at the BNSF Globeville Yard in Denver, Colorado. The train crew had pulled the rear of the train into a yard track and was performing a shoving movement to place the remainder of their train into another track when the train traversed a crossover switch lined for an adjacent track and collided with standing railcars. Three of the standing railcars and five railcars from the moving train derailed. The train’s conductor was thrown from the railcar he was riding, and that car then toppled onto him as it derailed.
We determined that the probable cause of the August 5, 2025, employee injury in Denver, Colorado, was a BNSF train misrouted through a misaligned crossover switch resulting in a raking collision and derailment, which caused the conductor, who was riding on the side of the lead car in the shoving movement, to be thrown from the train. Contributing to the accident was the conductor riding on the moving train when safer methods of protecting the shoving movement were available. Also contributing to the accident was the lack of identification markers on the track to provide positive visual identification to employees as to where close clearances exist, and insufficient communication between crew members about how to manage the risks associated with operating in locations with identified close clearance conditions.
The NTSB released Safety Alert 103 on November 15, 2025, drawing attention to the risks associated with riding equipment while protecting shoves and the 14 conductor fatalities that occurred between January 2020 and July 2025 related to this task. As outlined in the safety alert, railroads can take many actions to improve safety and reduce reliance on employee judgement, including providing alternatives to riding rail equipment, and identifying and clearly marking permanent close clearances and close track centers. This accident again demonstrates that the importance of safer means for providing point protection than riding on trains cannot be understated.
