incredible - oh no.

I have lived in this house next to these train tracks for 9 years and 11 months. This is the first time in all these years that this has happened while my family has been here. I'm sure it has been even longer since there has been a train accident on our line this close to home.

As I was talking with my sister on the phone this afternoon and about 5 minutes before Tim came in the door from work this train went past our house.
it was only these three engines and they didn't go past our house at any kind of excessive speed. there have been several times when a couple of engines have gone by at top speed and it bothers me at how fast they zipped past our house. this was definitely Not one of those times.

So Tim walked in the door and said there was an accident down our line involving the train and a dump truck and that the town officer was just getting there as he drove past! We didn't hear a thing and so I figured the place he was talking about was a couple of miles down the line.
then we heard some sirens and some fire trucks and ambulance went past the house.

This is what happened to the front engine. not much, just a crinkled front end which you can only tell by looking at the steps.

this is what happened to the truck. (click the picture for a larger view) there is no hood on the truck and the cab is bent over sideways.

the truck bed is about 10 yards away from the rest of the truck and in the left bottom of this picture is the hood for the truck.



the blue helicopter (air ambulance) came and took away the truck driver (I assume it was him) we don't know if he is alive or the extent of any injuries that he might have suffered but we are hoping he's alive.

I snapped a few pictures of it as we drove past. I didn't want to get out of the car because of all the police around. I didn't think they would be too happy with me getting any closer.
Not that I was looking for anything gruesome. I just wanted to have some pictures to show our future driver. kind of a scare tactic to get her to make sure she is careful about driving.
the intersection where this happened is only about a half mile from the house and there were no major visual obstructions there so we think that they didn't even stop before the track.



addition: the news was just on. they said that there were two people in the truck when it was struck. no one dead (as of 6:00 news) wheew! one of them was air lifted to the hospital and the other was stable enough for the regular ambulance.


addition: (july 14) it was a fatal crash. That would have been sad enough, but today they released the names of the men in the truck. one of those men was a good friend of my sister's husband and their family.
I feel mournful for everyone effected by the lose of him. I feel sad for this man's family. I feel sad for my brother in law and my sister.
they have my empathy and my sympathies.