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Back in the early 1990s, there was a collision somewhere south of Orlando, Florida between an Amtrak train and a power plant self contained generator unit that was being trucked into a power plant.  This was a special move with an oversize and presumably very heavy load.   Florida Dept. of Highways approved the entire move and its road routing.  However, there was an overlooked problem with the last grade crossing going into the power plant.  As I understood it, the double track was curved with super-elevation, and the lowboy trailer carrying the generator unit bottomed out on the rails and stuck so it could not be budged.  This was a classic case where one has to decide between expending valuable time extricating the stuck object, hoping to avoid any detection and/or embarrassment       -or- spend that time preparing to flag down any possible trains.  This generator move was a big deal, so they had lots of people in the convoy including at least one highway patrol car, which I would think would be well equipped to flag down a train.  And more units are usually close at hand if needed.  But instead, they chose to call the railroad on the phone.  Apparently they were told they had 15-30 minutes, so they got busy with jacks and blocking under the trailer, thinking they might get loose without needing to stop the train.  Unfortunately, the train was less that 15 minutes away, and soon came barreling around the curve at full speed.  The engineer later said he came around the curve and was confronted with a large, boxcar-size, green object centered across the track right in his path.  Apparently there were two men in the cab, and they both ran back into the engine room.  Seeing that a collision was imminent, the truck driver jumped back into the tractor (which was not on the track) and gave it all it had to try to yank the trailer out of the way.But the trailer did not budge, and time had run out, so he made a hasty exit from the tractor cab.  As he was doing so, the train hit the generator dead center, exploding it into a million pieces, upsetting both locomotives, and sending them skidding on their sides.  Although the tractor was not directly hit, it whipsawed when the load was hit, and threw the truck driver a considerable distance.  He did survive with injuries.  The rest of the train stayed on the rails.  One of the men in the engine room of the lead locomotive got burned pretty badly from getting tossed onto the exhaust manifold.  There were no passenger fatalities, but many broken bones and noses.  I did not see this collision aftermath, nor have I read anything about it, but relatives in Florida told me all about it.  One of them was a crane operator that worked on the cleanup.  I am wondering if anybody here recalls hearing anything about it.
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