Officials said that three people were killed and at least 50 were hurt when an Amtrak train derailed in Missouri on Monday.
According to Cpl. Justin Dunn, a spokeswoman for Missouri State Highway Patrol Troop B, two of the fatalities occurred on board the train, while the third occurred in a dump truck that was hit by the railway.
As per the catalog of railway crossings maintained by the US Department of Transportation, motorists reaching the remote crossing in Missouri’s Chariton County would be seeing two X-shaped black-and-white signs, known as crossbucks, that frequently read “railroad crossing.” But there were no bells, lights flashing, sidewalk markers, or gate arms at the intersection.
The most recently available information from the Department of Transportation indicates that approximately 29 trains passed through the crossing per day and approximately the same number at night in 2019. Freight trains accounted for the majority of the traffic. Two passenger trains passed the crossing each day during that year. According to the papers, trains can go through the corridor at a maximum speed of 90 mph. The BNSF Railway has primary control over the crossing.
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The Missouri Department of Transportation produced an infrastructure plan this year that called for upgrading the crossover this year at a cost of $400,000 to include lighting, gates, and other road upgrades.
Authorities reported that the terrible occurrence occurred at an uncontrolled crossing southwest of town where a gravel road intersected train tracks without any motion gates or warning lights.
Around 12:42 p.m., according to Amtrak, a public crossing outside the city of Mendon is where the train and dump truck crashed.
In an amended announcement, company representatives indicated that eight cars and two engines departed the line “after hitting a truck that was blocking a public crossing near Mendon, Missouri.” Reporters were informed by Dunn that seven cars had derailed.
There were roughly 243 passengers and 12 crew members on board the train, according to preliminary information from Amtrak.
The patrol reported that the fourth victim and the other two were on board the Southwest Chief train. Additionally killed was the driver of a compactor that was struck by a railway on Monday close to Mendon, Missouri.
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The patrol reported that approximately 150 persons were evacuated from the site to ten local hospitals by law enforcement and Amtrak authorities. They suffered from slight to severe wounds.
According to officials, a school has been transformed into a triage facility for patients with mild injuries.
He claimed that it “struck something substantial” in order to make every car explode.
Dax McDonald, who boarded the Southwest Chief train in Flagstaff, Arizona, was one of them. He noticed a huge dump truck driving through a haze of dust as it passed close to Mendon while staring out the right-hand side of the train.
He remembered the train moving steadily and quickly. The train lurched forward after a loud bang, according to McDonald. Then, it started to lean to the right before abruptly collapsing to the ground. In a video he shared on Twitter, the train’s interior was shown to be on its side, with disorganized passengers rummaging through their overturned bags. A passenger exiting the overturned passenger car filmed a Facebook Live video shortly after.
Amtrak advised travelers to phone or text 1-800-USA-RAIL if they needed information about the train right away.