This may answer a lot of questions:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uvb2oxhhmne9h ... h.pdf?dl=0
It is a decision of two cases regarding the aforementioned incident. The crew performed a drop or flying switch where the engines are on the facing point end of a switch and are unable to shove the cars into the siding. The engineer will accelerate his engines and the entire train before reaching the switch, bunch the slack, the conductor will pull the pin, engineer will again accelerate past the switch points while a ground man lines the switch for the diverging route after the engines pass over the switch. The cars, now uncoupled from the engines, will roll into the siding at which point a brakeman will tie on a hand brake to stop the cars in the appropriate location.
In this incident, the Engineer recalls seeing a backup sign from the ground man after his engines cleared the switch, so he reversed direction and subsequently collided with the NATX 34440 tanker which eventually exploded, destroying one engine and seriously damaging the other. A container found in the cab which was analyzed by Suffolk PD was found to have a substance which amounted to 7% alcohol by volume. It could not be proven whether this was window washing fluid or an intoxicant used by the crew, so it was eventually discounted. One empty beer can was found in the lead unit and two unopened containers of beer were found in the trailing unit's icebox. All beer cans were not found to be damaged by fire so the crew's defense was that those containers were placed there well after the fire was extinguished, possibly by firemen. It was concluded that performing the flying switch wasn't the cause of the accident but rather the Engineer mistaking a hand signal by a ground man to reverse direction before the entire consist cleared the main track.
I won't post the crew member's names in this thread, but you can see the names of all parties involved in the link above. The outcomes of the two investigations are also listed. The PDF file above was found and saved from the National Mediation Board's website at
http://www.nmb.gov/.