Workers noticed beam hanging off railcar days before fatal accident but didn’t tell the railroad

By JOSH FUNK
AP Business Writer

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Several days before a Norfolk Southern conductor trainee was killed by a metal beam protruding from a parked railcar on an adjacent track, workers at a U.S. Pipe facility noticed the beam was hanging off the top of the car but never told the railroad about it. The National Transportation Safety Board released those details this week in a report on the interviews it conducted after Walter James Griffin was killed near Bessemer, Alabama, on Dec. 13. The accident happened as Griffin’s train was passing another train that was in the process of picking up several cars. The death was one of the incidents the NTSB cited when it announced it would conduct a broad investigation into Norfolk Southern’s safety practices after a fiery derailment in eastern Ohio.