On January 31, 2021, about 12:40 p.m. local time, a Union Pacific Railroad (UP) employee was struck by a railbound track maintenance tamper (TMT) on a main track near Vail, Arizona. The employee was airlifted to a hospital, where he later died from his injuries. The employee was part of a tie gang comprising about 50 people and 23 pieces of equipment, performing crosstie renewal and track surfacing.
We determined that the probable cause of the accident was the operator’s failure to stop the track maintenance tamper’s forward movement due to his panicked state before striking the ground worker.
