That turned dark quickly. Instead of trying to stop a runaway train, the sheriff instead tried to keep track of where he was and where the train was heading. The train's engineer, William Grubb, told the Associated Press that he remembered the whistle blowing for the first time a little more than a minute before impact, when he realized the train was going off the track. "I jumped off and shoved the emergency brake as hard as I could," Grubb said. "There wasn't anything I could have done." Although he was no expert on trains, Grubb said he knew the diesel engine was pulling too heavy a load, and he figured he was trying to negotiate a turn on a curve that was too sharp. For some engineers, the whistle becomes a constant companion. "I always wonder how many I've heard," one said. That sentiment was echoed Thursday by John Rudd, a 33-year-old engineer named in the accident report as one of the people who saw the brakes failing. "It's something you don't forget. You know you have to let the company know. But there is nothing you can do about it." "They had already hit the end of the run," Rudd added. "It wasn't any use." The whistle -- almost an obsession among railroaders -- is the means by which they contact each other. Often, the sound is the first warning of an accident. "The train's whistle is the way you're going to find out there's been a fatality or a major accident," said John Brar, vice president of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, a Denver-based trade group. The report said the engineer of the lead locomotive got out of his cab several times to look back at the train after the initial emergency brakes were set. Each train, he said, has a brake pusher, someone whose job is to always be on the brakes -- to look out the window and see if there are any train parties in the pathway. "If there's someone on the track and it's moving at any speed, he's going to make a life-saving move," said one longtime engineer who didn't want to give his name. "He's going to throw himself out of the way of the train." Another whistle: On most trains, the engineer will always sound his whistle as he approaches another train and again when he's passing another train. It is not unusual to have five or more freight and passenger trains passing at any one time, with each engineer blowing his whistle to let the engineers in the other train cars know where they're going. Not so on that night. On that night, Grubb said, he blew the whistle only when he realized he was off the tracks. The NTSB report criticized Union Pacific for not maintaining an adequate number of hand-held radios, which could have been used by the engineer and handlers to communicate about what was going on. It also said that one of the two locomotive's power levers was left in the center position, a malfunction that could have contributed to the crash. But the cause of the crash? Just that. The report said that there was too much weight on the train and that the engineer didn't see a reason to change the speed. The light was bad, it said, and the truck driver's signals were blocked by a signal arm. "Too much train is always the problem," said Jim Lardy, a former locomotive engineer for Amtrak who's now with the consulting firm R.W. Beck. It's like the problem of a heavy airplane, he said. The weight of the plane might slow down a little in the air, but the aerodynamics work to help the plane pick up speed once it gets in the air. "If you keep increasing the speed of a train, you need to go faster and faster and make sure you can stop it," Lardy said. "The rule of thumb used to be the brakes had to be able to handle 20 times the weight of the train. In this case, it was something like 120 times the weight of the train." The NTSB also said in its report that the condition of the railroad track played a big role in the accident. Although the BNSF line has been upgraded in recent years, it has "limited track integrity," the report said. It is not straight and has a high center. The light from the locomotive wasn't good, and the conditions limited visibility of the train. "The track conditions, in combination with the engineer's focus on trying to see where the train was going," were a factor in the crash, the report said. Union Pacific spokeswoman Sally Treble said the company was still analyzing the report, but she could not immediately say if it would lead to changes for its employees. "I want to be clear that this is a preliminary report," she said. "It's not an investigative report." The report also criticized the Union Pacific crew for stopping when it did and then doing nothing for 15 minutes. They didn't call the State Patrol for a closer inspection, and they didn't walk alongside the train to get information about the brakes, which would have told them that the train was going faster than usual. "Their inaction was apparently based on their belief that they had no way to stop the train," the report said. The Associated Press ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Groups protest possible El Paso toll hikes Offer: $1.3 billion over 30 years. By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer 02/16/2001 Associated Press Newswires Copyright 2001. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. HOUSTON (AP) - The operators of the El Paso Electric Co. say they want to raise rates - a lot. The San Francisco-based company told the Texas Transportation Commission Tuesday that it wanted to increase electric rates $1.3 billion in the next 30 years to pay for new transmission lines. The proposed increase, while relatively small in overall terms, would undoubtedly rankle officials who are trying to keep rates down for consumers in one of the nation's most expensive states. "It's like a nuclear bomb," said state Rep. Tommy Merritt, an Eastland companion of state Sen. Pat Whitmire, the legislative champion of electric consumers. At issue is the Houston-based company's 770-mile electric grid stretching from the Texas-New Mexico state line south to El Paso. The utility already bears the brunt of electricity pricing in the state, as the transmission lines are in such poor shape that the utility must borrow from the state's own grid to operate its own. Texas, in fact, is paying the company to use its power lines to deliver electricity. And while Texas officials had insisted El Paso Electric control its own power grid, state regulators last year took the unprecedented step of installing a management team to run it. El Paso officials concede they have a transmission network that is in deteriorating condition, but they say the proposed increase was driven by increased use of the system. They say they have already invested $1.7 billion over the last four years on transmission projects. "I don't want to raise rates to increase revenue," said A.A. Siderius, vice president of El Paso Electric. "But these are costs the company has to pay." While the rate hike would increase revenues by $52 million a year, it represents just 0.01 percent of the $92 billion in revenue the company would have to raise rates to meet anticipated expenses for all capital improvement over the next three decades. For consumers, it would mean an increase of 3 cents a month starting in June for those who use 500 kilowatt hours a month. El Paso Electric serves about 550,000 residential and commercial customers in El Paso and surrounding areas. The company says that it expects rates to increase $10 million to $20 million a year to offset the construction costs of major projects. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will consider the proposal when it approves the transmission grid plan for the area. Merritt, one of two Republicans on the Texas House delegation from El Paso, said the increases in transmission costs will just further complicate an already-tangled issue of who pays for what in the city's energy market. Merritt said that until El Paso gets a handle on transmission costs and the burden it places on the rest of the state's grid, El Paso's already-tattered reputation for