I heard a couple of takes on this wreck. The ICC report stated that engineer Johnny Reddington had not run a train over the Chili in years and was not familiar with some of the line changes. It did not state what the line changes were.
Another take, I don't remember the source, states some of the retailers were set up on low pressure rather than high pressure. I wonder about that since conductor Henry Hines was a veteran railroader. The brakeman was not named he was probably a veteran also as the Chili mixed was a high-senority run.
Reddington and fireman Jack Fisk were killed and the 174 went in the ditch. It sounds like the train got away from the engineer.