(Barnesville, Pennsylvania – June 13, 2023)
A local semi-truck was split in two by a Reading Blue Mountain & Northern Railroad freight train at a dangerous, unguarded railroad crossing. The collision occurred yesterday in Barnesville. According to reports and photographs from the scene, the semi-truck was carrying a load of batteries that spilled over the roadway after the collision.
An eyewitness, Richard Forester, told local reporters that “And I heard a boom and then an unnoticeable emergency screeching of the brakes of the train. I looked out, the train stopped, big rig in two, and ‘ was like ‘oh no.’” It is unclear if the flashing lights were working at the time of the collision. According to another eyewitness truck driver, he did not see the lights come on before the collision.
According to railroad-submitted records, a total of sixteen trains traverse the crossing daily at a typical speed of 30 miles per hour. There has been at least one prior collision at this crossing. The crossing is equipped with flashing lights but does not have any gates. Studies have proven that the addition of gates to a light-only crossing reduces the likelihood of a collision by up to two-thirds.
