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Details emerge on West Virginia tourist train collision
This “run-on” lead sentence doesn’t make good sense, even when read aloud. Drop the word “that” and it would make better sense. Better yet, turn it into two shorter sentences.
As I found out during my tenure at the Gulf & Mississippi, log truck drivers are often temporary employees, poorly trained, and paid by the load. They operate overloaded and un-inspected trucks on back roads, this to hopefully avoid state safety inspectors inspectors. They’ve never heard of Operation Lifesaver. Perhaps those operating rural tourist and scenic railroads should reach out to these operators, figuring an ounce of prevention is worth a lot.
Prayers go to the injured, hats off to the train crew.
Thanks, JOHN SCOTT, for your interesting comments and insights. I appreciate it, and hope you stay safe and situationally aware out there in whatever vehicle you are driving! 
TRAINS MAGAZINE Online: Read This!
At least the lead sentence is HALF RIGHT now (see my original request to TRAINS MAGAZINE to correct their initial lead paragraph).
They corrected
“AM 18-wheel log truck” [Capitals mine], to
“AN 18-wheel log truck”.
Still, the sentence is incorrect. I’m not an English professor, but I know incorrect English when I see it!
LOOK, either “FAILED”, or “PLOWED” has to be an unmodified, ACTIVE verb:
EITHER,
The truck FAILED to stop AND plowed into the train,
OR,
The truck THAT failed to stop PLOWED into the train.
One or the other!
It cannot be both.
One of those verbs has to be active, or whatever the hell you call it!
The loss of life and unprofessional conduct of any of the drivers here is much more important than my trivial comments about grammar. But still, I think their memory deserves a correct sentence.
I hope they go after the truckers insurance for the lost revenue in addition to the damages. They operate on a shoe string budget as is and NEED every penny that WOULD have been earned.
Or, as I omitted in my previous comment, he had a medical condition. My point stands.
Nathan,
Are you serious? The government regulation worked fine. Lights were working, as intended. End of story. You can have all the regulation in the world, but if the driver’s brakes failed or he went around the gates, no regulations for rural intersections can stop that. You can’t stop every mishap without bankrupting everyone…please stop trying. Either the driver had a mechanical condition which kept him from stopping, or he went around the gates, which I have seen drivers do when I rode on a Operation Lifesaver train. That’s not a government regulation issue; that is simply being foolish.
Regardless of what the cause is, my condolences to his family and friends, and to those passengers aboard the train who are hurting because of this incident.
Better check your mileage. Morgantown is near the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, while Pocahontas County is adjacent to Virginia. Whole lot of trees and hills between the two with no direct route. Prayer to the injured and condolences to the family of the driver - But I have to agree with Earl.
Could be, too, the truck driver had a medical condition or attack of some kind…
This is a logger in West Virginia, not a normal over the road truck driver. Anybody who knows anything about loggers and CMV enforcement pretty much knows the CMV officers target the loggers early and often. The question isn’t if the logger is running in violation of the HOS or has equipment that doesn’t pass inspection. The question is how long it takes the CMV officer to find the first thing wrong, not in minutes, but seconds. No matter how much sacred cow government regulation you throw at somebody who thinks safety is for the next guy, it doesn’t matter. Those loggers will ignore the latest and greatest regulation and run illegal. It is like gun control. One more gun control law in Chicago isn’t going to deter the next gang banger from shooting up the neighborhood, despite popular opinion.
So that leaves us with two possible outcomes. Either the logger had a heart attack, which is 100% possible. Or the logger just didn’t give a damn because the train was in his way, that load of trees had to get to the mill, and safety is something for everybody else.
My experience has been to treat loggers like an angus bull with an attitude. Stay out of the way of of both as much as possible. That is, if you know what is good for you.
Please, we are gonna start talking about lost revenue? I wonder in a day how much lost revenue there is for business owners and companies that operate delivery vehicles when our drivers get stopped at a crossing gate for 15 minutes, or a crew has run out of service time and the crew decides to park their train over a crossing causing a 5 mile detour.
Could also be that the truck brakes did not work. Too many log trucks are in bad mechanical condition.
I used to be an Over-The-Road (OTR) Trucker, and I saw things doing that! A lot of log haulers cut corners every chance they get. Most of them are paid by the load, the more tonnage they deliver as well as more trips made equals more pay, thus they run as fast and hard as they can, and they’ll cheat on weight restrictions as well. I think it was probably a combination of rushing, driver fatigue, weight, and shoddy equipment that caused it. In more than one paper mill I picked up at. I would see State DOT Personnel there with portable scales, etc… They left the dry van trucks alone, but they inspected and weighed the log and chip trucks right & left, knowing it wasn’t if, but when they’d find things wrong! Most log haulers are just honest blue collar folks who want to earn an honest paycheck, but there are still a bunch of “hot doggers” out there.
Regardless of fault or cause, my prayers are with the injured and the family of the truck driver. I also hope that there is sufficient insurance in place to compensate the victims as well as repair or replace the damaged or destroyed equipment.
I hope they’re able to repair these. Not a lot of heavyweights left in tourist service these days.
Never applied the brakes! Sounds like he was asleep at the wheel to me.
Does any one realy think that he had insurance!!!
Wonder what Gusie has to say about bad ol’ gubbermint regulatin’ dem truckers. Costs lives without it, it does.!How many hours was he behind the wheel? To miss flashing lights and downed gates at a grade crossing has to have happened for a reason as it could not have been intentional. Only logical explanation is fatigue, which speaks to lack of regulation. At least no innocents on the train died.
The truck driver was probably a “God Fearing” man of the Church of Jimmy Hoffa of the Landfill. Don’t remember any mention of gates for crossing protection. Maybe a dancing red devil, or blue Republican, on a crossing arm, would have helped. This do be West Virginia, no? The outcome of the investigation will be interesting. Was he driving a foreign Freightliner, Volvo, or Mack truck? That could be the root cause. Insured by Progressive?