13 hurt as Amtrak train collies with tractor trailer in N.C.
(The following story by Jesse James Deconto, Bruce Siceloff and Amy Dunn appeared on the News & Observer website on May 14, 2010.)
MEBANE, N.C. A truck driver ignored signs warning of a humpbacked railroad crossing, and his lowboy trailer got stuck in the path of an Amtrak train Thursday morning. The collision dumped diesel fuel at the downtown wreck site but resulted in only minor injuries to passengers.
The driver got out before the train plowed over the trailer at 7:49 a.m., tearing it from the engine cab and knocking parts of the backhoe it was carrying into cars parked nearby. Twelve of the 36 Charlotte-bound passengers and one crew member needed medical attention, but none suffered life-threatening injuries.
The derailment closed Mebane streets for hours and forced cancellation of Thursday's Amtrak service for the Charlotte-to-Raleigh Piedmont and the Charlotte-to-New York Carolinian. Train service was set to resume this morning.
"We are extremely fortunate that there were no fatalities," said Sondra Artis, a spokeswoman for the N.C. Department of Transportation.
Thursday's crash was the latest in a series of collisions between trains and vehicles at Triangle-area crossings. In December, trains hit two passenger vehicles, killing two young boys in Durham and a mother and her 5-year-old son in Efland.
Authorities estimate the Mebane train had slowed to about 70 mph after the engineer saw the truck on the tracks. The tracks are on a rail bed that is higher than two streets that run parallel on either side, creating a "hump" at the crossing that can snag a long vehicle.
Authorities say the truck driver ignored a sign: "Low vehicles may drag." An accompanying sign shows a tractor-trailer truck bent over a humped rail crossing. Paul Worley, chief of train safety for the N.C. DOT, said the signs are only warnings, not legal prohibitions.
Police did not immediately charge the driver. Nor did they release his identity. The truck's owner, Lazaro Contracting of Raleigh, could not be reached.
"We do have the signs out there that this is a hazard and should not be used as a truck route," Worley said. "It's always good, common sense to follow the warning signs."
The injured passengers and crew member were taken to Alamance Regional Medical Center, Duke University Hospital and UNC Hospitals. Other passengers traveled by bus to their destinations.
State transportation officials say the Amtrak engineer came around a bend in the track, saw the tractor-trailer stuck on the tracks ahead and hit the brakes, slowing the train from 79 mph to 70 mph before striking the trailer.
The impact wedged the trailer beneath the locomotive, where it ruptured the diesel fuel tank. The locomotive pushed the trailer down the track, but the three passenger cars were not derailed. When the train came to a halt, the rear car was resting in the Fifth Street crossing.
The backhoe lay in pieces on the north side of the tracks, and parts of it had struck cars parked nearby. The truck's motor cab still sat in the crossing, turned askew where the train had dragged it before tearing the trailer loose.
The train had left Raleigh Thursday morning with 1,900 gallons of diesel fuel. A hazardous materials team from Norfolk Southern Railroad siphoned about half of that from the fuel tanks after the crash. Authorities are not sure how much spilled onto the ground or burned in a fire that broke out when the locomotive ran up over the trailer, piercing the fuel tank.
Fifth Street crashes
It was the seventh crash at the Fifth Street crossing since 1978. The only fatal accident occurred on Feb. 12, 2005, when an Amtrak train stuck a car that was stopped on the tracks. The car driver, a 78-year-old woman, was killed. The Amtrak train speed in that crash was recorded at 78 mph.
No one was hurt in the most recent crash on Feb. 24, when a Honda minivan tried to go around the safety gates but got stopped behind traffic. The driver tried to make a U-turn on the tracks but was struck by a Norfolk Southern freight train moving at 8 mph.
Twelve freight and passenger trains use the Fifth Street crossing each day. After previous accidents, the crossing was equipped with four-quadrant gates, which use a pair of gates covering both lanes of the street on both sides of the tracks, to make it more difficult for cars to drive around the gates onto the tracks.
Mebane police and the state Highway Patrol are investigating.
