There was an accident involving the California Zephyr and a truck yesterday.
Wow, the truck crashed into the side of the train, not the more usualy train slammign into a truck already across the tracks.
–Randy
Just hope that the truck driver doesn’t have a muslim name.
Interestingly, the local news (Las Vegas Channel 3) headlined it as, “Train hits truck.”
(Broadside???)
Does anyone wonder why I don’t have much respect for the media?
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Any resemblence between local news and real journalism is purely accidental. These idiots are clueless. Neilsen ratings is the name of the game.
Can you please keep your racist remarks to yourself.
[sigh]
IBTL…
What a horrible accident. I’ve traveled on that train many times and have met some wonderful Amtrak employees, it is just hard to imagine something like this can happen until it does.
Wayne
This was a horrible accident, and I feel very sorry for the people on the train who were killed or injured and their families.
The truck driver, not so much.
It is interesting how, as Chuck pointed out, to read the headline, it looks like the train hit the truck. Even in that case though, it likely wouldn’t be the train crew’s fault.
This is a direct result of the American love affair with the motor vehicle, and how quick we are to grant licenses to marginally competent drivers, and how difficult it is to take them away, in spite of overwhelming evidence that the individual shouldn’t be driving.
An employee of mine had his cousins killed by a drunk driver in West Virginia. This driver had been convicted of DUI 3 times in WV, lost his license (w/o doing jail time), went to Pennsylvania, got an new license and continued driving. At the time of the accident, he had two DUI’s pending against his PA license. One egregious case perhaps, but it shouldn’t be that easy.
Would one of our European friends like to weigh in about their licensing systems?
I do not think Hamltnblue was being racist, there have been rumors that trains may be attacked in retaliation to Osama Bin Laden’s death, or other reasons. And after 9/11 people tend to take these threats seriosly.
Truck.
If the regulations on the truckign industry with regards to safety were only half as stringent as those on the railroad industry…
–Randy
Agreed, nowhere do I read any “racism” in that post, and there are rumors that have been reported by our government found on OBL’s hard drives.
I know exactly what Hamltnblue meant by that post. Stop being hypersensitive, it makes you look foolish.
We should give judges the power to permanently revoke a persons right to drive, at least in that State, removing such power from hearing examiners at the motor vehicle administration. And we should ask other States to honor such rulings.
But in my opinion, we need not model anything we do after what goes on in Europe or anywhere else in the world.
It is politically correct to blame the train, or, if a small car and an SUV crash, blame the SUV, or if a car and big truck crash, to blame the truck. The bigger vehicle is always at fault - didn’t you know that?
It is also politically correct to not blame drivers who kill themselves in one car crashes, but rather to build roadside memorials to them.
Lot of things are upside down in this culture - and Chuck is right abo
An update I saw (time stamped 16 minutes ago) says they did find tire skid marks from the truck.
Killed on the train was Amtrak Conductor Laurette Lee. According to what I’ve heard, she’ll be sorely missed. She was an older woman who started her career as a clerk but wanted to be a conductor. She really liked her job but really ran a tight ship from what I understand. She handled herself well and did a great job.
I suspect the trucker was trying to outrun the train and then when he figured out he goofed, hit the brakes and swerved but it was too late. Or perhaps he was distracted with a cell phone? What a waste.
Highway 95 in Nevada–the highway on which the accident occurred–is one of the loneliest highways I’ve ever driven. And unfortunately, it’s just flat, flat, FLAT desert for just about all of it’s north-south route through Nevada. It’s a very ‘hypnotic’ highway, and it’s very easy to end up driving a LOT faster than you think you are (I ended up driving about 109mph in a '57 T-bird heading south on that highway back in the 'sixties before I realized it). What towns are on the highway are small and miles apart, separated by miles and miles of miles and miles. Flat and desolate.
I’m not trying to defend the truck driver, understand–but in retrospect I can see why he might have been traveling way above the speed limit when he came upon that very isolated railroad crossing in the middle of the desert on a very level, almost unending straight highway. Yes, there are skid marks at the crossing, there are photos of it.
I agree with those of you wondering about what the media is thinking–even on our local station, which is only about 150 miles from the scene of the accident, the newscaster was going on about the ‘train hitting the truck’. If he’d bothered to turn around and look at the screen behind him and see the two burned out passenger cars–one of them with the remnants of the truck cab imbedded in the side of the car–, he’d realize just how silly that phrase actually both sounded and looked.
I don’t know if the track has been cleared yet in the vicinity of the crash, but earlier today in the UP Roseville yards, there were a few trains stacked up waiting to head over Donner. I would imagine that UP has been sending most of the Donner-Sparks traffic over their alternate Feather River Canyon route.
Tom
Ok, I get it. Hamltnblue is your friend and you will support his comment regardless of what he meant. I believe he was being racist, what other reason would make him type such a statement? If he was expressing concern about the “threats” that ensued after OBL’s death or 9/11 then Hamltnblue should have expressed his thought with more clarity. Perhaps saying something to the effect of hoping this incide
So the guy was either asleep or initially tried to beat the train then realized he wasn’t goign to make it and became permanently aquainted with the laws of physics when he found out a multi-ton truck does not stop instantly no matter how many wheels it has and how hard you stomp the brake pedal. However it shakes out, this guy should NOT have been behind the wheel, and now innocent people are paying with their lives for this moron.
–Randy
[quote user=“jasperofzeal”]
Geared Steam:
Truck:
jasperofzeal:
Hamltnblue:
Just hope that the truck driver doesn’t have a muslim name.
Can you please keep your racist remarks to yourself.
I do not think Hamltnblue was being racist, there have been rumors that trains may be attacked in retaliation to Osama Bin Laden’s death, or other reasons. And after 9/11 people tend to take these threats seriosly.
Truck.
Agreed, nowhere do I read any “racism” in that post, and there are rumors that have been reported by our government found on OBL’s hard drives.
I know exactly what Hamltnblue meant by that post. Stop being hypersensitive, it makes you look foolish.
Ok, I get it. Hamltnblue is your friend and you will support his comment regardless of what he meant. I believe he was being racist, what other reason would make him type such a statement? If he was expressing concern about the “threats” that ensued after OBL’s d
The back and forth between Truck and Jasper might not have occurred here if one assumes innocence before being proven guilty of racism…let us try to imagine that slip ups can occur too please…