Lucky today I was out rail fanning today & I had my camera at hand so I was able to get pix of the aftermath of a UPRR D/stack train after it whacked a tractor trailer. Please go to myrailpix.com & you will see the gallery for this incident. The trailing loco was a unpatched SPRR #8578 & was slightly damaged. Gas cap was ripped off + another part was left dangling. Accident occurred about 1 hour ago & the pix were taken at the Amtrak station in Austin. I will be posting pix of the unpatched SPRR loco seperately later.
Was the truck parked too close to the tracks? Doesn’t look like a whole lot of damage to the truck or the train. Was anyone hurt?
Some said that the truck was parked to close to the tracks. However, the trailer loco was the damaged unit not the lead loco & the truck was squashed up against the DS car. No from the 1st pix you can see the driver giving his story to the police. He was very lucky because at the spot the train is going real slow & I mean real slow cause it had just navigated a 90 degree turn from NB to WB
I would say that the SP loco will be patched when it is taken in for repair. Who knows, it might be fully decked out with armour yellow.
I was talking with the engineer & I asked him where did the SPRR loco come from. He said it was on the train when he crewed on at San Antonio & suspected it had come up from Mexico (?). It appeared to be in pretty good shape & once I post the pix you will see the paint was hardly faded on it. It looked to me like it had been kept in a engine barn for some years before the UPRR put it to work as it was not even dirty or grimy. The lead UPRR loco showed far more wear & tear on it then the SPRR one did at least to my observation[:)]