The National Transportation Safety Board yesterday issued two “urgent” safety recommendations to the Federal Transit Administration as part of its ongoing investigation into the deaths of two Bay Area Rapid Transit track workers who were struck by a BART train near Walnut Creek, Calif., on October 19.

Despite having such poor vision that he drove with a restricted (auto) license, a train engineer was medically recertified by his employer, Union Pacific Railroad. Those vision problems contributed to fatal 2012 head-on collision between two freight trains in Oklahoma, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

The death of a railroad foreman who was struck by a train last month has led to urgent recommendations from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for ways to improve safety for track maintenance crews to provide signal protection.