Driving home from work yesterday, I witnessed, albeit through the rearview mirror, a rather spectacular site. Here is what happened.

As I was driving along, I noticed ahead of me, several vehicles and a bulk semi tractor trailer near one of the railroad track crossings. A bulk trailer is one in which they haul things like flour, concrete, etc. - powder like substances. The closer I got, I could see plenty of people walking around. The bulk tanker was stopped, in the middle of the RR tracks. It appeared that the truck had possibly stalled out, because it didn't look like the belly of the trailer was hung up. There was another trailer backed up to it. It looked as if they were working to offload the truck that was on the tracks. On the road side of the tracks, there were a couple of vehicles, one of which was some sort of service vehicle with red and blue lights on top, which were flashing. I thought to myself "that's a bad place to stall out." I didn't bother to stop because there were plenty of people around. They obviously did not need any more help.

As I drove past, I looked over and notice that the lights on the RR crossing were flashing and the cross arms had come down right on top of the trailer. I said to myself "Holy shit! The cross arms came down on him. That's not good." I continued to drive. I kept checking my rearview mirror. Then I noticed the light......the headlight from the train that was coming down the tracks. As I watched in the mirror, I saw the service vehicle, the one with the flashing red and blue lights, speed across the highway, away from the train tracks. Then I watched as the train went barreling right thru the disabled truck/trailer. A big cloud of dust filled the air. And the train was slowing down. Surprisingly, I couldn't hear any sound from the crash. And I wasn't that far away. Probably didn't help that my windows were up and the ac was running in my truck. I found the nearest place to cross over to the other side of the highway, and drove back, past the wreck, then back around to drive by it again. The train was stopped, people were all over the place, and the semi tractor was a short ways down the tracks, sitting right up against the train.

I felt very confident that no one was hurt. They had plenty of warning that the train was coming. I guess if someone did get hurt, it was because they were not smart enough to move themselves out of harm's way. If I had realized this was going to happen, I would have stopped further back and video-taped the whole thing. What a feeling, to know that truck was stopped on the tracks, see the train coming, knowing there was nothing anyone could do, and then watching the train as it plowed right through. One thing that surprised me was, since there were so many vehicles around, and what appeared to be another truck there to offload the disabled truck, why hadn't that train been stopped. It was coming through town, and although they travel pretty fast, it's not like they are running 70 mph like most are out in the country. Maybe someone thought they'd have it all cleared up before a train got there. I just don't know. Since I wasn't there, I can't speculate as to what had been done. But one would think that the train could have been stopped before it ever got there. With the large number of tanker trucks that travel in this area, hauling crude oil and other refined petroleum products, it is fortunate that this was a bulk tanker instead. That crash could have been a huge explosion and fireball rather than a cloud of dust!