MARCH 10, 2015
RALEIGH, NC
A truck with an oversized load and a state trooper escort
was stuck in a railroad crossing with time enough to alert approaching trains,
but there's no indication Amtrak was warned before a crash that injured 55
people, officials said.
An eyewitness told The Associated Press that the
tractor-trailer — which stretched for 164 feet, longer than half a football
field — spent about 8 minutes stuck on the railroad tracks. The State Highway
Patrol said the trooper spent about 5 minutes trying to help clear the tracks.
In any case, the truck driver and trooper apparently failed
to follow the clearly established protocol, which requires staying in contact
with train dispatchers during these trips, a former Federal Railroad
Administration official said Tuesday.
Amber Keeter, 19, was stuck in traffic in her car with her
baby directly behind the tractor-trailer. She told the AP that the truck
driver, his assistant in a flag car and a trooper spent about 15 to 20 minutes
trying to negotiate the left turn across the tracks at the intersection of
highways U.S. 301 and N.C. 903 in Halifax County, North Carolina.
"It was so long they couldn't make the turn," she
said.
She rolled down her window and asked the flag man if he
could call someone to stop the trains, "and he said he didn't think
so," she said.
Then, "the railroad lights started blinking, and so the
tractor-trailer driver tried to gun it forward," she said. "By that
time, the train had hit the tractor-trailer."
The driver jumped out "just a couple of seconds
before," she said.
Proper protocol calls for troopers escorting trucks to
"clear their routes and inform the railroad dispatchers what they're
doing," said Steve Ditmeyer, a former Federal Railroad Administration
official who teaches railway management at Michigan State University.
Even if they lose contact with the dispatcher during the
trip, the 1-800 number on the pole that holds the flashing lights reaches a CSX
dispatcher, he said.
"That dispatcher would have immediately put up a red
signal for Amtrak and radioed Amtrak to stop," he said.
Truckers and troopers should know the protocol, and these
1-800 numbers have been posted for decades. But in this case, the train
engineer "didn't know about the truck until he was coming around a curve.
He had no long vision," Ditmeyer said.
CSX spokeswoman Kristin Seay wouldn't say if anyone called
before the crash. "That's all going to be part of the investigation,"
she said.
Most people treated at hospitals were released by Tuesday,
and about a dozen of the train's 212 passengers had already continued their
journey by bus to Richmond, Virginia, where they could take another train.
"We're just thankful that we're still alive. It could
have been really worse. God was really with us," said Lisa Carson, 50, of
Philadelphia.
The Federal Railroad Administration's database shows at
least five previous collisions at the same Halifax crossing, all involving
vehicles on the tracks. The most recent was in 2005, when a freight train hit a
truck's "utility trailer." In 1977, an Amtrak train hit a car at 70
mph. The driver got out in time, but a railroad employee was injured, that
accident report said.
Monday's collision was the third serious train crash in less
than two months. Crashes in New York and California in February killed a total
of seven people and injured 30.
The Federal Railroad Administration is continuing to
interview witnesses and will review onboard recorders from the train in
Monday's crash. The agency's associate administrator, Kevin Thompson, said the
tracks reopened about 15 hours later, and that CSX was repairing the crossing's
safety equipment.
The modular building was "an electrical distribution
center" being hauled from Clayton, North Carolina, to New Jersey, said Lt.
Jeff Gordon, a spokesman for the North Carolina State Highway Patrol.
Gordon said the truck driver tried to back up to make a
second attempt with a wider swing to cross the tracks, but there was too much
traffic behind it.
The approach of the New York-bound train from Charlotte,
North Carolina, set off warning lights and the crossing arms came down,
prompting the driver to flee.
"I saw him jump out of the truck when he knew he
couldn't beat it. ... I heard the train noise and thought, 'Oh, my God, it's
going to happen,'" said eyewitness Leslie Cipriani, who recorded the crash
on her cellphone.
The truck driver, John Devin Black of Claremont, escaped
without injury, but the conductor, Keenan Talley of Raleigh, was among the
injured.
Gordon said the tractor-trailer is owned by Guy M. Turner
Inc. of Greensboro. The company did not respond to an email requesting comment.
Source: abcnews.com