Toyota Crash Test...

I got to see a Toyota T100 that was hit by a train at grade crossing just up from the shop I work at. I was in the back test running an engine when I heard this loud thump. I looked out to see if the tractor trailer we were expecting was there, or if some of the unloading help had arrived. Seeing nothing, I went back to work. I finished with the equipment I was working on, and took the work order up to the office. The boss, and parts room guy were glued to the front windows, and told me the train had just hit a pickup. Luckily, nobody was seriously injured.

A local wrecking service picked up the T100, and the SUV that it was knocked into by the train. Their impound lot is right behind the shop, so, I walked back there and looked it over on my lunch break. The impact ripped the bed completely off the pickup, and the frame was badly twisted. The SUV that it was thrown into didn't look that bad, but the owner's son told me that it bent the frame. The train hit on the passenger side of the T100, right between the back of the cab (extra cab model) and the rear axle. There was nobody on the passenger side, the driver was the only occupant. Had it hit the cab, or hit the drivers side, I'm most sure it would have been fatal. The train was travelling 44mph before the brakes were applied.

The driver was in a hurry, and never saw, or heard the train, or crossing gates. The train engineer said he saw the pickup approach the crossing, and the crossing gates came down on the truck's hood. The pickup then backed up, an he thought it was out of the way, and crisis was over. The truck then tried to drive around the crossing gates, and the engineer put the brakes into emergency, and held the air horn down, but it was way too late to stop. The train was all empties, and stopped in about a quarter mile. Had it been loaded it would have been more like half to three quarters of a mile.

Railroad signal guys were still working on the damaged crossing gates when I went home at 5pm. Police charged the driver of the T100 with reckless driving. I still think it's it's nearly a miracle that nobody was killed or even seriously injured. I know the engineer who's train hit, and killed somebody at a private, unguarded crossing, about 8 miles south of here three years ago. He said the engineer that hit the T100 called him after the crash to ask what he would have to go through during the investigation. The guy I know told him, "if you weren't speeding, no problem, they can't do anything to you". That's got to be unnerving though, when you hit somebody. However, if they run in front of the train, there's not much one can do.

 

pics?

 

Here are a couple of links to local media with pics/vids. i just found these. I don't watch TV, so I didn't even know what news media had on the crash.

http://www.whsv.com/news/headlines/Train-Hits--246334581.html

http://www.dnronline.com/article/new_train_plows_pickup_injures_driver