My company has an office in St. Rose, LA. Here's a bit of an e-mail that I got earlier from them: A Kansas City Southern train with two locomotives collided with a tractor trailer directly behind our office in St. Rose about 8:30 a.m. this morning causing both engines to derail. There were no injuries although the conductor, who was in the 2nd engine, was trapped for a few minutes before being freed by onlookers before emergency workers arrived. I have put some pictures they sent me in my Rail Images album: http://www.railimages.com/gallery/johnstanisich I think the first 11 pics are of the wreck.
Sounds like yet another unemployed trucker! His former company will be happy when their insurance company gets the cleanup and repair bills. Boxcab E50
A pair of GP3-2s. I didn't know KCS put the horn so far back near the fans...UP style. How did they hit a truck? I don't see a road. Even down beyond the covered hoppers. Maybe they went for a ways before they headed for the swamp.
Photo 7 actually shows the crossing. Looks like it was just protected with flashing lights, I don't see gates. That hydraulic crane lying on it's side in the foreground makes me think it was probably being transported on a lowboy that got hit, although you can't see a trailer. This area is right in the middle of refinery row along the Mississippi just northwest of New Orleans. Lots of rail traffic on this stretch, and lots of traffic crossing on the limited number of crossings that go between River Road and Airline Highway. Lots of impatient people who don't like to wait for the trains to pass. Regards Ed
Or maybe the gates were away goofing off or something. Sorry. Grade crossing accidents are very serious but I couldn't resist.
John, Thanks for posting the pics, looks like quite a lot of damage, if there any report of whether the level crossing was operating correctly?
From what I read in the brief news report I found... the truck was stalled on the tracks... with nobody in it when it got hit. Great parking place, eh?
Finally... I found a decent link: http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1101886156121780.xml?nola
