North Dakota Trucker Narrowly Escapes Death at Dangerous, Unguarded CP Crossing
(Burlington, North Dakota – June 28, 2012)
The as-yet unidentified driver of an empty semi-trailer truck received the scare of his life Thursday morning when his rig was hit by a Canadian Pacific freight train and knocked into a trackside ditch just outside of Burlington, ND, at the dangerous, unguarded crossing of an access road and CP tracks.
The crossing is ill-equipped, and depends completely upon passive warning signs such as crossbucks. It is lacking any form of automatic protective devices such as lights, bells or crossing gates, which could not only have prevented Thursday’s accident, but also one earlier this year when two vehicular occupants were injured at the exact, same crossing February 6, 2012.
Doug Brady, who was an eye-witness to Thursday’s crash, was highly critical of road and railroad authorities for their lack of crossing protection, especially after the earlier accident.
“They don’t have signs right here or anything to tell you a train’s coming, and so he (the truck driver) started to pull across the tracks when he saw that the train was going to hit his truck,” Brady told KMOT-TV, Channel 10 Reporter Jenny Castro. “The train hit his trailer about midway through it; luckily, it was empty.”
