Union Pacific Train Strikes Another Hung Up Truck at High Profile Crossing
(Argyle, Texas – October 10, 2013)
A little more than a day after another train/semi accident occurred in Midland, TX, another multi-thousand dollar load and the rig hauling it was destroyed by a Union Pacific freight train at the low ground clearance crossing of UP Railroad tracks and Crawford Road in Argyle, TX in Denton County just north of the Dallas-Fort Worth area at about 6:00 P.M. Thursday. The driver escaped the tractor prior to the crash.
A large backhoe, valued in the 6-figuredollar range, became hung up on the high profile, yet not marked by a warning sign indicating the danger of hauling low-boy trailers across it, crossing only to have one of the nearly a dozen trains that pass through that intersection daily at speeds of up to 60 mph strike, carry nearly 100 feet, and virtually destroy both the excavation machine as well as the rig carrying it to a nearby construction site.
Argyle Fire Chief Mac Hohenberger observed that “The driver got stuck and couldn’t go forward or backward. He got out to try to fix it (jack up the bottom of the low-boy trailer), but the train came through about a minute later.”
Witness Jon Odom was able to videotape the collision via his cellular telephone, offered it to the news media, and once posted upon the Internet, the filmed sequence went viral.
