2 Dead when Semi Smacks Amtrak Train in Nevada

[mrscsi]

So now it shows that he was failing/or couldn't obey a State traffic STOP signal, at a gated/flashing RR crossing ... and/or was driving too fast to stop ... unless the truck had faulty brakes.

The driver had an unobstructed view of the approaching train, as the tracks were on an obtuse angle to his FOV ... It wasn't like the train snuck up on him from behind. Google Earth shows that there was in excess of 1/8 mile of straight road as you round a huge sweeping curve, with pavement RR markings 750 feet from the crossing. I am presuming that the accident happened in broad daylight and in clear weather.

I see you're stepping back off the edge, who cares what Google Earth shows, he wasn't driving looking at a map of Google Earth and yes you are presuming quite a bit.

Have you ever dealt with extreme glare on a laminated windshield in the desert? Do you have personal experience in stopping a tractor pulling two trailers on dry pavement traveling 80 ft./s? Is your 750 feet from the crossing something you also looked up in Google Earth, or have you actually measured it in real life? Have you ever tried to see those pavement markings dealing with extreme glare on a laminated windshield in the desert?

I could pose counter questions to you all day long that would be just as valid as your presumptions. From where you're sitting in the comfort of your own home looking through Google Earth it all seems cut and dried in your mind.

But I can tell you as someone who has had personal experience with the West Coast Amtrak moving 70 to 80 miles an hour across an unguarded crossing and I know for fact he did not hit his horn until after he was through the crossing, sitting as high as he was he could've easily saw my vehicle approaching the crossing over the vineyards but yet he didn't see fit to blow the horn. Now of course I didn't see him because the track was fairly obscured by vineyards on each side of the road, but I came within probably 2 feet of being roadkill on the front of a eastbound Amtrak.

So not everything is as cut and dried as you would like to think, just because they tested the circuitry on the signals doesn't mean the driver could see them possibly due to sunlight glaring off the windshield in the desert for example. We don't know whether the Amtrak tried to brake prior or whether or not he was using his horn before he got to the crossing. We just don't know now do we?

So until the NTSB makes an official determination as to the cause, speculation and presumption is really just that.

 

[cascaderailroad]

I don't know how there are not more truck wrecks than there actually are ... it is tough out there for truck drivers. I could never drive a cube box truck, let alone a 53' tractor trailer. It looked as if it was a tanker, with a tandem trailer. In Australia Road Trains they have many multiple trailers ... I cold not even fathom driving that long of a rig.

There are statistics that say there is a minor RR derailment every 90 secnds, and a fatal car wreck every 6 seconds (I don't know who comes up with all these facts and figures) ? Like Philadelphian's consume enough ketchup in a year, enough to fill Veterans Stadium to the top of first level (does that include the basement and concourses) ?

One of the worst was a wreck near Chester, where some idiot in a white compact car, cut off a cube box truck, the truck driver swerved to avoid the collision, and was pinned insde, burning alive, trapped in a firey wreck.

Another was when a loaded gasoline tanker driver fell asleep at the wheel, and came barreling down the hill at Gulph Mills Pa, and slammed into dozens of cars at the bottom of the hill, crushing dozens of the occupants. Gasoline flowed downhill, ignited, and burnt up even more motorists. It was awful !!!

The roads are a horrible mess in the US, and truck and car traffic volume is horrendous. I could never do the truck driver job.

 

[mrscsi]

I don't know how there are not more truck wrecks than there actually are ... it is tough out there for truck drivers. I could never drive a cube box truck, let alone a 53' tractor trailer. It looked as if it was a tanker, with a tandem trailer. In Australia Road Trains they have many multiple trailers ... I cold not even fathom driving that long of a rig.

There are statistics that say there is a minor RR derailment every 90 secnds, and a fatal car wreck every 6 seconds (I don't know who comes up with all these facts and figures) ? Like Philadelphian's consume enough ketchup in a year, enough to fill Veterans Stadium to the top of first level (does that include the basement and concourses) ?

One of the worst was a wreck near Chester, where some idiot in a white compact car, cut off a cube box truck, the truck driver swerved to avoid the collision, and was pinned insde, burning alive, trapped in a firey wreck.

Another was when a loaded gasoline tanker driver fell asleep at the wheel, and came barreling down the hill at Gulph Mills Pa, and slammed into dozens of cars at the bottom of the hill, crushing dozens of the occupants. Gasoline flowed downhill, ignited, and burnt up even more motorists. It was awful !!!

The roads are a horrible mess in the US, and truck and car traffic volume is horrendous. I could never do the truck driver job.

My Pennsylvania accident that I alluded to earlier was one that most Pennsylvanians around Harrisburg should be thanking their lucky stars that there is such as thing as a nuclear emergency response team.

Because this was back 91 I think or 90 when they were putting these nuclear tipped torpedoes onto the submarines at Norfork and all these protesters were out there protesting and one of them laid down in front of a train and got his legs cut off.

Unfortunately his effort was for naught, because they weren't shipping nuclear tipped torpedoes via rail. They were on Schneider, JB Hunt, Fisher, Canon and two or three other companies trucks.

I was driving with Fisher, and we would go to Hawthorne Nevada at the Naval weapons Center, and they would put on (what the bill of lading said anyway) one torpedo one box of parts. We were not to display a nuclear placards, we were to take our 1700 pound load (a joy for an over the road driver by the way) and take it to Norfork Virginia.

After the old lady committed suicide against my truck, and it wound up on its side and the top the trailer was cracked open and half of this torpedo was sticking out when I called my dispatcher he was freaking, it was only after the nuclear emergency response team arrived on the scene that I found out why.

That torpedo we knew was nuclear tipped, that wasn't a problem (because without the detonator they're pretty much inert), to find out that the box of parts was actually the detonator made my skin crawl.

 

[backyard]

All is so-called "safe"...

My Dad drove for Minute Maid, as did my Uncle Lil Joe.

Dad hauled Hi-C out of Florida, picked up loads from Coca-Cola, the 5-gals & stainless 42-gal. Coke syrup out of Atlanta.

One of the loads the Minute Maid drivers hauled out of Atlanta Coca-Cola was several drums, (55-gal barrels), the extract of the cocoa plant, used to make Coke.

It was a metabolite of what we today call "cocaine," a schedule II Narcotic chemical since 1937 by the Congress of the United States of America.

The drums were loaded first, in the front of a 40ft. trailer with the simple instructions: "Do not leave this truck at all where you cannot see it, even in a truck stop."

They were taken to New Jersey to a pharmaceutical company...

The big picture on this Amtrak accident, is that the crossing was at grade...this was a high speed Amtrak route, the best way to avoid this type incident is to either elevate the railroad track or lower the highway.

It's bad to autopsy the driver without being on the scene, yes let the FRA handle that, for the good of the family of the fatality.

Make no mistake that the danger of commodities carried on our nations highways are totally regulated & all safety is considered, however this guy was only hauling dirt.

 

[ZecMurphy]

Guys, time to call it quits here.

When (and only when) this investigation has concluded will we look to unlock this thread, and only then if someone wishes to post a link to the findings of the investigation.

Speculation really doesn't lead us anywhere, apart from getting rather angry with each other.

 

[Euphod]

...and despite all the speculation, attacks and personal anecdotes; there are now 6 confirmed dead from the accident. Tragic.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/2...killed-in-fiery-amtrak-crash/?test=latestnews