Two crewmen were injured today when a string of four Amtrak railroad locomotives collided with a coal-hauling Conrail freight train in Chase, the scene four years ago of another train wreck in which 16 people died and more than 170 were injured.
Today's injured were flown to the Shock-Trauma Unit in Baltimore. A spokeswoman there identified them as Raymond F. Hunsberger, 38, of Glen Olden, Pa., in serious but stable condition, and Ronald E. Hairston, 48, of Collegeville, Pa., in fair and stable condition.
Baltimore County police identified Hunsberger as the engineer and Hairston as the conductor of the four Amtrak engines.
Today's crash occurred at almost the identical spot where a string of Conrail locomotives in January 1987 went through a switch and into the path of the high-speed Amtrak "Colonial" passenger train, in what was the Amtrak line's single worst accident.
"I can't believe this can happen again," said a stunned Cathi Fischer, who lives about 100 yards from the accident scene on Twin River Beach Road near the rail bridge over the Gunpowder River.
"There is something seriously wrong with that track," she said. Her husband, Gary, was awakened about 3:10 a.m. by a loud bang and screeching. She said her husband and her sister, Peggy Ferguson, rushed onto the tracks from the Fischer home and helped the two Amtrak crewmen, who had leaped from the train seconds before the crash.
Two of the Amtrak engines, weighing a total of 600,000 pounds, were derailed in the collision. Two of the coal cars also were knocked off the tracks and five other Conrail cars were heavily damaged.
"Don't you think somebody ought to do something?" said Gary Fischer. "Should we expect this every four years?"
All three Chase residents said they helped rescue the injured in the 1987 accident. Cathi Fischer stood next to the railroad tracks today and said, "Another wreck, another wreck."
"I always worry that these trains will carry chemicals on them and wreck," said Darlene Piercy, 45, a neighbor. "If they don't straighten out these tracks now, something terrible is going to happen."
"There seems to be a problem with the signal," said Sgt. Stephen Doarnberger, county police spokesman. "The Amtrak train was supposed to have a red signal and stop until the Conrail train passed.
"We're going to treat it like a crime scene to make sure a crime didn't take place."
