A Missouri River Runner train was involved in two seperate accidents in suburban Kansas City yesterday...what are the chances of that. The first one was more severe colliding with a stolen pickup driving between the gates at 80mph and another collision 30 miles east.
http://www.kmbc.com/video/24531239/index.html
A 44-year-old Lee’s Summit man driving a stolen pickup was seriously injured Thursday in a collision with an Amtrak train.
It was the first of two wrecks for the train as it traveled from Lee’s Summit to St. Louis.
The man drove around a railroad crossing barrier at Thompson Drive and Hamblen Road about 8 a.m., Lee’s Summit police said. The truck, which police later learned had been stolen from a nearby sanitation business, was struck by the train and sheared in half, police Sgt. Mike Childs said.
The impact knocked the driver from the truck; he landed about 40 feet away. The train pushed the pickup’s bed about 100 yards down the tracks, Childs said.
The driver, who was taken to a hospital intensive-care unit, was expected to survive. Authorities did not release his name.
None of the 129 passengers on the train was injured.
After a 90-minute delay, the train continued on. Just outside of Warrensburg, it struck another pickup.
A Johnson County, Mo., maintenance worker had stopped too close to the tracks, said Sgt. Collin Stosberg of the Missouri Highway Patrol.
The train ripped off the truck’s bumper. The worker was not injured.
Stosberg said the train was traveling about 55 mph and its engineer sounded the horn as it approached. The worker, who was spraying weeds from inside the truck, did not have time to get off the tracks, he said.
At 55 mph, “it takes a train the length of 18 football fields, or about a mile or more, for it to stop,” Stosberg said. “Motorists or pedestrians should always assume there is a train coming; they should always look both ways and listen for the sound.”
Shayla Winslow of Lee’s Summit was on the train, taking her two children to visit relatives in Jefferson City.
With the first wreck, she said, passengers felt a jolt and heard a loud noise.
“With the second vehicle, we really didn’t know what happened until they told us,” Winslow said.
To reach Glenn E. Rice, call 816-234-4341 or send e-mail to grice@kcstar.com.
That first incident (to a former Disaster Control tech, anything requiring a response is an 'incident') sounds like something written to end the TV crime drama in time for the closing commercial.
As for the weed sprayer that lost his bumper, he should be burning incense to whatever diety was watching over him. He could just as easily have had his truck spun into the loco's running gear.
I keep dreaming that someday the general public will come to realize that, in any encounter between a train and any other moveable object, the train is a guaranteed winner. When will they learn to stay off the tracks, stop at lowered gates and/or active crossing flashers...
At least there are no obituaries, this time.
Chuck
I wouldn't say the train is ALWAYS the winner...
The object under the Loco is the low boy trailer upon which the track ho was being transported.
Notice that the loco burned after the impact tore open it's fuel tanks.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Tracks don't move.
These accidents could possibly be the most avoidable accidents ever.
aegrotatioTracks don't move.
Neither do roads. What a silly response. Who is at fault isn't the issue. The whole point is that without total separation of road and rail, these accidents will happen. if it involves a passenger train hitting a large truck, there could be many fatalities.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
schlimm aegrotatioTracks don't move. Neither do roads. What a silly response. Who is at fault isn't the issue. The whole point is that without total separation of road and rail, these accidents will happen. if it involves a passenger train hitting a large truck, there could be many fatalities.
But the difference is that roads don't steer the cars and trucks that use them. The first one, the driver intentionally went around the gates and other stopped traffice to cross the tracks. Stupidity will trump technology every time. Nothing can be made idiot proof because idiots are too ingenious.
There is no such thing as "Fool proof". "Fool resistant" is the best you can hope for.
TomDiehlBut the difference is that roads don't steer the cars and trucks that use them. The first one, the driver intentionally went around the gates and other stopped traffice to cross the tracks. Stupidity will trump technology every time. Nothing can be made idiot proof because idiots are too ingenious.
And that is precisely why total separation of trucks, cars and people is needed. One, it prevents the incidents with what many in this forum call "Darwin Award winners." Two, it prevents the inevitable injuries and deaths of the train crew and passengers if a large, heavy truck is on the crossing, foolishly or because of a malfunction. I can recall from long ago when an IC Iowa division passenger train (Land of Corn) struck a heavy cement truck at the Gary Road crossing in Cloverdale (now Bloomingdale). I recall that at least one of the engine crew died of suffocation from the cement before he could be rescued.
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