(Springboro, Pennsylvania – August 10, 2011)
A local political official died about 8:24 A.M. Wednesday morning when his 2005 Ford Focus was struck by a 123-car Canadian National Railroad subsidiary coal train at the ungated crossing of Beaver Street in Springboro, PA.
Mark Shallenberger, 34, of Saegertown, PA, and a Woodcock Boro Councilman, was transported to UPMC Hamot Medical Center in Erie, PA, where he was declared dead at approximately 2:00 P.M.
The victim’s car, impaled upon the nose of the locomotive, was carried over a quarter of a mile from the crossing, and emergency officials needed over an hour to extricate the victim. The Beaver Street crossing is equipped with flashing lights, but has no crossing gates to protect highway vehicles from entering the intersection.
