...Amtrak’s Sunset Limited and M/V Mauvilla – Corporate Social Responsibility 1 It has been called the worst train disaster in U.S. history. The wreckage of the Sunset Limited on September 22, 1993 took 47 lives. There are many circumstances surrounding this wreck that affect the many stakeholders involved. Certainly, CSX Transportation, Inc., Amtrak and Warrior and Gulf Navigation Company (WGN) and their employees, the passengers on the train and barge, the surrounding community, the train and barge industries, the governing body of the Big Bayou Canot bridge, environment, and stockholders are all stakeholders. Adding possibly to that list, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), US Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard might be stakeholders as well. The Mauvilla, while being steered by Pilot Odom, and not Captain Stabler, in dense fog conditions could be viewed as negligent. Additionally, Odom admittedly was not adequately trained in the use of the towboat’s radar system. At the time of the accident, Amtrak’s conductor and assistant conductor were not in the wheelhouse of Amtrak’s engine Number 819 and the train, being guided by engineers, was traveling at a speed above authorization. Again, given the weather conditions, this could be viewed as negligent. Certainly, these two examples might not be illegal; however, the outcome of the incident “precipitated the filing of over one hundred personal injury and wrongful...
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...The Wreck of Amtrak’s Sunset Limited H. Richard Eisenbeis, Sue Hanks, and Bruce Barrett University of Southern Colorado On September 22, 1993, the Sunset Limited, the pride of Amtrak, glided swiftly along through the warm, fall night. A dense fog hugged the countryside. Because there was nothing to see through the train’s windows, many passengers dozed peacefully, lulled to sleep by the gentle, rhythmic, clickety-clack of iron wheels passing over jointed rails. Crewmembers roamed the aisles and halls making sure that those guests still awake were accommodated and comfortable. In less than a second, this peaceful scene was shattered by a thundering roar as seats were torn from the floor and passengers were sent flying through the cars. At 2:53 a.m. Amtrak’s only transcontinental passenger train, the Sunset Limited, plunged into Big Bayou Canot, killing 47 passengers. Eight minutes earlier at 2:45 a.m., a towboat, pushing six barges and lost in a dense fog, unknowingly bumped into the Big Bayou Canot Bridge knocking the track out of alignment. The train, traveling at a speed of 72 mph in the dense fog, derailed as a result, burying the engine and four cars five stories deep in the mud and muck of Big Bayou Canot.4,7,8,10,12,13 Bruce Barrett, a locomotive engineer, has described what might have been occurring in the cab of Amtrak engine Number 819 prior to the wreck.2 This scenario is based upon my 17 years’ experience as a locomotive engineer on a major ...
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...The Wreck of Amtrak’s Sunset Limited H. Richard Eisenbeis, Sue Hanks, and Bruce Barrett University of Southern Colorado On September 22, 1993, the Sunset Limited, the pride of Amtrak, glided swiftly along through the warm, fall night. A dense fog hugged the countryside. Because there was nothing to see through the train’s windows, many passengers dozed peacefully, lulled to sleep by the gentle, rhythmic, clickety-clack of iron wheels passing over jointed rails. Crewmembers roamed the aisles and halls making sure that those guests still awake were accommodated and comfortable. In less than a second, this peaceful scene was shattered by a thundering roar as seats were torn from the floor and passengers were sent flying through the cars. At 2:53 a.m. Amtrak’s only transcontinental passenger train, the Sunset Limited, plunged into Big Bayou Canot, killing 47 passengers. Eight minutes earlier at 2:45 a.m., a towboat, pushing six barges and lost in a dense fog, unknowingly bumped into the Big Bayou Canot Bridge knocking the track out of alignment. The train, traveling at a speed of 72 mph in the dense fog, derailed as a result, burying the engine and four cars five stories deep in the mud and muck of Big Bayou Canot.4,7,8,10,12,13 Bruce Barrett, a locomotive engineer, has described what might have been occurring in the cab of Amtrak engine Number 819 prior to the wreck.2 This scenario is based upon my 17 years’ experience as a locomotive engineer on a major western railroad and...
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...parties with interest such as employees, suppliers, customers, local communities, among other parties (Ask). In this case the stakeholders would be the crew members, the passengers, the community where this tragedy happened, the towns where Amtrak provides services are stakeholders. All these stakeholders have stakes that are directly or indirectly. The interest for all the stakeholders is to have a safe trip, but in this case the interest for the owners, and the crew members is to not have anything go wrong that may cost them financially. For the passengers, the interest was to travel in a less expensive, but comfortable manner. As for the community and cities where the train traveled, it brought customers too many businesses there. Amtrak’s corporate social responsibility legally was to have some kind of safeguards on the bridge to alert boats know there was a bridge there. We have safeguards that come down at railroad crossings way before the train gets there; so why not have the same kind of safety measures on bridges. The M/V Mauvilla should share some responsibility legally as well. They should have checked to see what the weather was like before they left to see if was safe to travel. Ethically, the lack of anyone coming forward and taking responsible for this tragedy. This was no normal accident. Normal accidents focus on the properties of systems themselves rather than on the errors that owners, designers, and operators make running them (Appendix C, Normal Accidents)...
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...business practice that demands that business organizations look to the effect their decisions have on multiple stakeholders” (eGuide 2010 pg. 3). I would have to say after reading The Wreck of Amtrak’s Sunset Limited, the question of “Who was at fault” remains a difficult quest to conquer. However, I will do my best to break this case study down into elements that will eventually present an idea as to who truly was at fault for the derailment, in my opinion. I will present to you all the stakeholders involved in this derailment, as well as their interests in cleaning up the mess this “normal accident” left in its wake. Next, I will explain the four areas of the corporation's social corporate responsibilities including the economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic areas. Based on these four areas of corporate social responsibility, I will reveal my final synopsis of who was responsible for this derailment and provide my rationales and recommendations to each of the businesses at fault. To begin, I will present a brief history of the derailment of Sunset Limited and the “normal accident” that took place. A brief history of the “normal accident” The case study for this assignment involved several factors to help create the accident. Amtrak’s transcontinental passenger train, Sunset Limited, was delayed in New Orleans and behind schedule thirty minutes before it left Alabama. At the same time this train was cruising on its tracks a good seventy-two mph, a towboat that...
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