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Truck strikes No. 5 near Reno; injuries reported
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by George Harris: [QB] The second comment on the california beat reference is from a truck driver who states that the visitility at the crossing is excellent. There is another article on the news that estimatad the missing at around 45 and sstated that firemen saw burned bodies that they were not able to reach due to the damage to the structure of the coach. I put together a preliminary summary of the situation. Some of what is written is in response to issues raised elsewhere. Here it is: The truck was empty. It appears to have been a double trailer, or else a fairly long single unit with a trailer behind that. Here is what I get out of what I see in the pictures and the map plus some things pulled out of what others have said. There is quite a bit I have read that comes out of what people know from their own interests and professions that help in understanding what happened. Location on the railroad: About milepost 318.6. Somebody should be able to give that more exactly since it can be read off the housing at the road crossing. It appears from Google Maps to be about 4/10 mile west of the west end of Ocala siding, which is at milepost 319.0. From the 2005 ETT, the speed limit here is 79P/70F. Given the terrain, all trains not using the siding, freight and passenger should be going fairly fast. The speed in the siding is shown as being 20 mph, so a train entering or leaving the siding would be going fairly slow but this is CTC territory, so there is no stop to throw the switch involved. Location on the highway: South of the crossing the highway is more or less parallel to the railroad, but not close, probably about 1/4 mile east of the railroad. Going north toward the railroad crossing, before the crossing, there is a large radius curve to the left and the crossing is just north of the end of the curve. First, this is a fairly low angle crossing, somewhere around 35 to 45 degrees. The truck was going northbound on US95, which in this area means pretty well due north after running parallel to the railroad. The train was going westbound (obviously), which in this area means southwest. Therefore, they were near facing each other. In fact, given the openness of the country, the headlight of the train should have been in sight of the truck before he entered the curve that is in advance of the crossing. This leaves us with two scenarios: One, that the truck driver saw the train and tried to beat it. That would seem irrational, to say the least, as the time of observation that he would have had would tell him that the train was moving fast. Two, and somewhat more reasonable to consider that the truck driver was unaware until he saw the headlight, or, maybe heard the horn. Whether he was distracted or had headphones on a loud engine, who knows. Anything said in this area is completely speculation, and useless at this time. Suffice to say, when he did become aware, he swerved to the left. That would be the natural reaction when perceiving a threat from the left. He would probably have made the situation better by swerving right, but that would be an unnatural reaction, and there was no time at all for thought. Second: With the crossing angle, at best the angle of impact would be somewhere in the 45 degree to 60 degree range. That would give a closing speed of around 110 mph or greater. Third: Given the closing speed, the front part of the cab including engine, and probably fuel tanks, would almost certainly have ended up inside the car they hit. It would not be surprising to find that some parts of the front of the truck went clear through the car. Fourth: Given this impact, the total fuel in the truck ended up inside and splashed underneath the car. I would go with inside, as there is no evidence in the pictures I have seen of fuel on the roadbed in the vicinity of the crossing, which would be the case if any significant quantity went under the car. Likewise, there is no evidence of fire inside or under the train beyond this one car. Fifth: The smoke and flames say diesel fuel fire plus combustion of diesel fuel soaked car furnishings and contents. Someone else probably could give a better quantity, but I would say somewhere between 50 and 200 gallons of diesel fuel were involved. The fire has nothing to do with the relative flammability of the vehicle or contents. Some of what we see in the pictures is evidence of melted metal. For the passengers and crew to do anything about this fire other that put as much distance as they could between the fire and themselves would be an act of stupidity. In my opinion, the presence or absence of fire extinguishers, a fire fighting plan, or anything else on the train, including the materials in the car and an on-board fire suppression system is completely irrelevant to the situation. Sixth: The large hole in the side of the car behind the car on fire was caused by the first trailer coming around and slamming up against the car. Seventh: The train did not derail because the point of impact was between the trucks. If one of the wheel sets of the train had been hit by the truck a derailment would have been a near certainty. I have not looked much yet today for further information on injuries / deaths, but being on the upper level of the car hit by the trailer and on the side the trailer hit would almost certain result in serious injury or death. Likewise, being on the lower level of the car hit by the front end of the truck would be nearly a death sentence. Being on the upper level would not be so good, either. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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