Sounds really, really bad. 4 confirmed dead and lots of serious injuries. The vet and their spouse was on the float potentially wiping out the whole family. My heart goes out to the victims. Such a shame.
The crossing guard gate never went down. :eek:
A tragic day. My heart goes out to the victims and the community.
Doesn’t every driver check anyway?
Obviously not. I looked in Google Earth and the tracks are a straight line for over 2 miles in both directions.
The truck was a semi and most states require CDL drivers to stop and look at rail road crossings no matter what the status of any crossing control devices. Trucks are loud and if the driver wasn’t paying attention, it is possible that he had no chance of hearing any train warning horn. It doesn’t seem likely that a truck driver would try to ‘beat’ a train with people on the bed of the trailer.
This is such a shame that this happened, hopefully the remaining survivors recover. It sounds like many of them may have already been in frail conditions.
Absolutely horrific. The trailer was the second of two in the parade, so slow-moving to begin with. Possibly the driver was unable to pull forward, and/or unaware of the train as he was already across the tracks and facing away.
There are a lot of train crossings in Texas that don’t have guard arms, so it may not even be that there was a malfunction - just a driver who wasn’t paying attention, didn’t wait for the first truck to pull forward far enough to get clearance, and didn’t check the tracks.
This crossing has the guard arms.
I’m puzzled why they had the people on the float when it still needed to cross those tracks. It’s always bumpy getting over train tracks. I know they were assembling for the parade. You’re not supposed to travel far on a float. Just up and down the street.
Such a shame. This was supposed to have been such a wonderful weekend event for these people. The guys going hunting and the women a pampered spa weekend.
I checked today and so far the death count is 4. There’s a lot of people listed in critical condition. I hope they pull through.
Just looked at the intersection in Google Maps. I’m guessing it’s another Fox River incident.
The mere fact of an active railroad line in the route of this parade should have set off alarms in the heads of the affair’s organizers, the local cops and whomever authorized this. But, oh, I forgot, this is Texas…
Anyway, a senseless tragedy that in no way need have happened if someone had done their job correctly - be it the driver, the planners or the cops.
Seeing how it was a parade, bet there is video out there.