Railroad Accident Investigation Report No. 4175: Norfolk and Western Railway, Finney, Va., August 25, 1970

The Federal Railroad Administration dated this report November 1971, fifteen months after an eastbound coal train ran through a stop signal at Finney, Virginia, took a siding switch lined against it, and collided head-on with a helper locomotive. Two crewmen died. The investigators could not say why the train did not stop.

The findings read as a list of things ruled out. The signal system tested sound. The brakes were mostly sound, and a test train running at 13 mph stopped in 353 feet, 719 feet short of the signal. The engineer had been working the controls minutes before the collision, so sleep seemed unlikely to the investigators, and the autopsy found no heart seizure. That leaves a failure to keep a lookout, which the report raises as a possibility and cannot confirm.

A hillside, a curve and a house hid the signal until 1,072 feet out for the front brakeman and 773 feet for the engineer. The engineer sat on the right side of the cab, behind the short hood. The report prints his disciplinary record from 1959 to 1964, including a charge of inattention to duty, and then does not rest the cause on it. Two photographs show the signal from each distance.