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I am not taking a position on who was at fault with this accident.  For all I know, the car they hit did have reflectors.  According to the larger article, there was no stop sign, but even with crossbuscks alone, a driver must exercise enough caution to avoid getting struck by a train or running into the side of one.  The crossings that I have seen with just crossbucks have an advance warning sign indicating a railroad crossing ahead.  I might assume that this crossing had that advance-warning feature since it would seem to be essential to the logic of expecting some reaction time even for a vehicle traveling 30 mph. It is easy to assume they were speeding because of the loaded nature of the description, "joyriding in a stolen car," but without witnesses, I doubt we will ever know how fast they were going.  I would not assume they were speeding or overdriving their headlights just because the impact tore the top off of the Jeep.  That could happen at impact speeds perhaps as low as 30 mph depending on the size of the vehicle and the size of the gap under the tank car.  The rounded shape of tank cars probably facilitate vehicles running under them.  The train was not moving.  If a train were hard to see, I would think it would be slightly easier to see if it were moving as opposed to being stopped.  This may have simply been a black tank car without reflectors, a perfect example of the road hazard that has been identified by the FRA.
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