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...how do I access the NTSB/DOT accident reports?
There is a certain barge/railroad drawbridge accident which occurred in Galveston in the early '80s (late 1981, I think) which I have been trying to find. Google has been no help and the various NTSB/DOT websites I have searched have been about as user-friendly as an electric chair. Personal connection to the accident: I was railfanning on the bridge and left it about two hours before the collision....
Thanks in advance for any help.
George Harris Member # 2077
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I had not found the ntsb web site that bad, but it does not do you that much good for accidents that far back. Only accidents since 1996 are available, and not all of them. Most had a text summary and the full report as a pdf file. Theoretically the NTSB reports are public documents, but I think some have been removed from the web site as being a little too informative for those that would like to cause trouble.
The site is www.ntsb.gov when it gets open, click on railroad when that page opens, click on publications. for some strange reason that gets you to a page that lists all accident reports. when that page opens, click on Railroad Accidents if you look at the top you will be at www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/R_Acc.htm not sure what would happen if you tried to enter that directly. I have had that not work on some sites. You will see a list that is presumably all accidents that the NTSB investigated back to 1967, but only some to most of those since 1996 lead you to downloadable reports.
The other site that can give you information further back, but is more difficult to find what you want, and also has some of the accident reports misplaced is:
dotlibrary.specialcollection.net There is no www in front of that. When the page opens, click on "I. C. C. Historical Railroad Investigation Reports (1911-1994) This will open up a page that lists years in a column beginning with 1911. Now here is where things get messy. Click on a year and it will give you a list of railroad companies. When you click on one of the companies, it will lead you to a particular accident report involving that company. The list of companies is more or less in chronological order of accidents. The accident report comes up as a text file that you can copy into a word file and also gives you a link to a pdf file that is a scan of the accident report.
The problems with this site are several. First, not all accident reports are there. Second, some that are there are out of order. I found one under Florida East Coast in, I believe it was, 1955 that actually occurred in 1935. Third the text file has considerable errors in scanning or transcribing, whichever they did, and the work was done by a person unfamiliar with railroad terminology. Third, sometimes the railroad company named will be wrong, particularly if on trackage rights. The list by company names only means that if you know only an approximate date and a location it can take you a long time to find the accident, and then you are also dealing with the possibility that it is not there at all.
Also, remember that you are in Texas, so it may either by the common company name, Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe, or by the Texas company, Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe, or even by simply Santa Fe. Since it seems that you may be talking about the drawbridge, which I believe was owned by GCSF, it could also be under Southern Pacific, Texas and New Orleans, Missouri Pacific, Missouri Kansas Texas.
If it is possible to go to newspaper files or other historical information in Galveston or Houston to zero in on the date better, that might help. Sometimes you will find that events occurred further in the past than you first think, so if starting at 1980 and going forward comes up dry, go back to 1979 and start backtracking. Remembering, if there were no fatalities or major damage, there is a high likelihood that the accident is not even in the dotlibrary site.
Good Luck, George
George Harris Member # 2077
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The accident you are referring to is recent enough that it should be on the NTSB listing if they made an accident report and I did not see one that looked likely. It could be that the severity of the accident did not rise to the threshold that required an NTSB investigation. In which case there would not be one on either site. Even though the other site refers to ICC accident reports, those of the more recent dates on that site actually are NTSB reports.
ehbowen Member # 4317
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As far as I can remember, there were no fatalities and no serious injuries, but the barge which hit the bridge was loaded with acrylonitrile and exploded when it hit. The bridge structure was damaged in the resulting fire, although after repairs it remained in service for about another ten years, but I believe the barge was a total loss. It burned for several days.
The story told to me afterward by the bridge tender was that she was seized with a sudden urgent need to visit the sanitary facility downstairs at almost the exact same time that the towboat called requesting the bridge open. It was at night in a pea-soup fog and she couldn't tell where the oncoming vessel was, so she asked him how far he was from the bridge. His answer (I forget the exact distance, but I think a half mile) was far enough that she felt safe in running downstairs to the necessary first. However, apparently his answer was based on a radarscope reading and whoever took the reading forgot to take into account the length of the barges he was pushing. She was just coming back up the steps to the control room when the collision and explosion occured.
Fortunately she was behind the reinforced concrete control tower and shielded from the blast and no one was on the deck of the barge, so there were no serious injuries. While the control room was full of window glass broken in the explosion, the controls were still functional and she was able to raise the bridge, else it too might have been a total loss. As it was, most of the fire damage was to the no-longer-used wooden deck for automobile traffic. Once the bridge was raised, the towboat crew was able to push the burning barge clear and cut it loose.
I'm quite sure that this accident did not occur prior to 1980; I didn't have a driver's license prior to 1980 (well, September 1979). And I am fairly certain that it occured before I began working for my Uncle Sam in December of 1982. I probably could go to the local library and find newspaper records after a bit of searching, but I'm just curious to find out what the official report, if any, had to say.
Thanks for your help.
George Harris Member # 2077
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Went to the NTSB web and searched under Marine Accidents and nothing that sounds like your accident, either. There were several accident in the Galveston / Houston Ship Channel area, but none that mentioned involvement of a bridge. The nearest, and it was slightly outside the time frame, was:
Title: Explosion and Fire on Board the SS Chevron Hawaii with Damages to Barges and Deer Park Shell Oil Company Terminal Houston Ship Channel, September 1, 1979. NTSB Report Number: MAR-80-18, adopted on 9/29/1980 NTIS Report Number: PB82-171661
That date is before that of reports scanned in, so that is all the information I found.
It appears that barges striking highway bridges are marine accidents. So why is one of the worst bridge hits of all, at Mobile Bay, classified as a railroad accident? Are other hits of railroad bridges classified as railroad accidents? I did not see any hits of railroad bridges in the Marine Accidents list.
George
ehbowen Member # 4317
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In marine terms, it would probably be listed under "Intracoastal Waterway", since that's what the bridge actually spans.
George Harris Member # 2077
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Eric:
Still can't find it. Found that the recently (about 15 years ago) replaced bascule span on the Causeway is supposed to be replaced in the next couple of years with a 300 ft long or so vertical left bridge. This on www.towers.txrrhistory.com/097/097.htm According to this, Tower 97, at the lift span is the last manned tower in Texas, but then it also says the Neches River draw at Beaumont is a manned tower. Maybe it does not count because it was never assigned a number.
I hope they have enough smarts to double track it, because ultimately there should be Houston to Galveston interurban type service. Unfortunately, I doubt it.
The original brige had three tracks, two railroad tracks and one electrified interurban track. It appears from pictures that road traffic used the interurban's track area to go over the drawspan.
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