Amtrak train bound for Washington derails in N.C.
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Version 0 of 1. The engine of an Amtrak train bound for Washington’s Union Station struck a tractor trailer at a grade crossing and derailed in rural North Carolina early Monday afternoon, authorities said. It was unclear whether train crew, passengers or people in the truck were injured. It was the third time in recent weeks that a passenger train has collided with a vehicle at a grade crossing. The train, which Amtrak calls the Carolinian, struck the truck just in Halifax County, N.C., south of the Virginia border, slamming into the flat-bed trailer but leaving the cab intact. The train’s engine was splayed almost at right angles to the track on which it had been operating, and the baggage car directly behind it also derailed but remained upright. Local authorities said that injuries appeared to be minor, and that uninjured passengers were being transferred to buses. Witnesses said the tractor-trailer was attempting to make a turn from U.S. Route 301 onto a more narrow two-lane road that was bisected within a matter of yards by the railroad tracks. They said the truck driver was having trouble negotiating the turn because of the length of his vehicle, which carried a large load covered by a blue plastic tarp on the flat bed portion. One witness said the driver had been struggling to make the turn for about 15 minutes, and a state trooper had arrived to assist at the time the train came down the track and struck the trailer, separating it from its load and pushing the load down the rail bed. The Federal Railroad Administration said it was sending a team to the accident scene. The Carolinian, also designated train number 80, was due to arrive in Union Station at 4:37 p.m. before heading north toward Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. |