CSX Train Collides with Truck at Still Unguarded Maryland Crossing Where Derailment and Explosion occurred in 2013
(Rosedale, Maryland – August 5, 2014)
Ever since a CSX freight train laden with, among other commodities, hazardous materials struck and destroyed a trash truck at the dangerous, unguarded private crossing of 68th Street in the Baltimore, MD suburb of Rosedale, MD, the intersection has remained as it was before the May 28, 2013 crash that hospitalized the truck owner/operator after the collision.
The crossing is still unguarded and not equipped with any active warning devices, such as lights and gates, which could warn of an oncoming CSX train. Nor has the crossing’s position improved from its place as the 16th most dangerous crossing in the state, according to the Federal Railroad Administration’s formula for “likelihood of a collision,” with a 4.2% possibility of one occurring in any given year.
Tuesday morning at about 8:15 A.M., another southbound CSX freight train, this one primarily carrying empty cars designed to carry orange juice, barreled through the crossing and its parallel industrial corridor, this time striking a truck designed to carry dumpsters, although it was completely empty of any of the trash collecting containers. This time the train, one of a daily average of 23 that pass over the crossing daily at a top allowable speed of 50 mph, stayed on the rails and the driver, 44-year-old Ramona Jones, escaped injury. But every other potentially negative aspect of the situation was just as it was in 2013, and undoubtedly will afford the crossing an increase in its dubious position on the FRA’s list of most dangerous crossings.
The accident Tuesday was the third to occur at the crossing.
