INTERCESSION CITY, Fla. _ An oversized tractor-trailer trapped across the tracks. An Amtrak passenger train rocketing around a long, sweeping curve. A series of cascading miscalculations and misunderstandings that left both crews unaware of each other and of impending disaster. The result: Amtrak's Silver Meteor, carrying 103 passengers and eight crew members, blindsided a truck carrying a mammoth, 82-ton generator Tuesday as state troopers frantically tried to flag down the train. At least 52 people were hurt, most with cuts and bruises. The first four cars of the eight-car train, bound from Tampa, Fla., to New York, were smashed and derailed. The impact crumbled the truck, trailer and generator and pushed them 150 yards down the tracks in a wooded, rural area about 10 miles southwest of Kissimmee in central Florida. ``It was like a slow-motion bomb going off,'' said Mark Robinson, a deliveryman who saw the crash. ``The train cars started twisting and turning off the track.'' The train's engineer, James Thomas, 46, said he never had a chance. Amtrak officials said Thomas needed at least a mile to stop the train, which was traveling at the authorized speed of 78 miles an hour. He had 30 yards. At most. ``We had just come around the curve and it was there,'' said Thomas. ``We hit Boom! Bang! Just like that.'' No fire erupted, but the impact raised a thunderhead of dust. As it cleared, dazed and bleeding passengers crawled from the train's windows and from the ripped fuselages of rail cars. Employees of a nearby, small plastics company comforted them on a patch of grass. Paramedics quickly established a triage center on the same patch of grass, now littered with rubber gloves and bloodstained towels. Helicopters and ambulances carried the most seriously injured to local hospitals. Others were treated on the spot. The uninjured were boarded on buses, one from nearby Disney World. ``A strange day for me, let me tell you,'' said the driver, identified by his Mickey Mouse badge as Steve. Chris Gent, a spokesman for the Kissimmee Utilities Authority, which owned the generator, was photographing the operation at the time of the accident. He watched helplessly as the very thing his company was determined to avoid happened anyway. ``All of a sudden the train was there,'' he said. ``Twenty of us were up on the track. I just yelled and everybody ran and took cover.'' Gent and Lt. Chuck Williams, a spokesman for the Florida Highway Patrol, provided this account of the accident _ and of an operation plagued at the end by miscalculations and misunderstandings: The $12.6 million generator was being slowly ferried from Tampa's port to a new power station being built west of Kissimmee. The 55-mile journey began at 11:30 p.m. Monday and was just ending at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday. The generator was so big that it had to be carried on an ``articulated'' trailer, one that is hinged in the middle and requires someone on the back to steer the rear section. The process is so slow and painstaking _ so likely to inhibit surrounding traffic _ that the truck was escorted, as required by the state Department of Transportation, by two highway patrol cars. Just a few hundred yards from its destination, a new power station called Cane Island, the trailer approached from the west along Old Tampa Road. But Gent said it could not make the sharp turn onto an access road and had clipped a stop sign as it tried. So, the subcontractor who owned the truck and was in charge of the moving job _ Roundtree Transport Co. of Tampa _ backed the trailer out and had it come around the other side, from the east. The turn was easier, but halfway across the track, the trailer scraped bottom and became stuck. Now, a crew began jacking it up; the truck had a special hydraulic system to lift the bottom over the rise created by the tracks. ``The tractor-trailer was raised as high as it would go, but it wasn't high enough,'' said Williams, the Highway Patrol spokesman. According to Gent, someone from Roundtree called the local Amtrak office to warn dispatchers of the trapped truck. He was told that the first train through at that point would not come until 1 p.m. and was led to believe it would be approaching from the east, Gent said. So, the crew had about a half-hour, according to Gent. They worked hurriedly, but without panic, he said. But within five minutes, according to Gent, a train barreled around a curve and came right at them _ from the west. The crossing gates came down, hitting the truck and trailer. The red lights flashed their warning. The two troopers who had escorted the truck and were now leaving, stopped and waved at the engineer. It was too late. The train was moving too quickly, the distance too short. The driver of the truck still struggled to get the truck off the tracks, but he could not. He jumped from the cab just as the train hit. He was knocked unconscious and was in critical condition Tuesday night at a local hospital. Gent said he heard no train horn. Other witnesses reported hearing a short blast from the horn followed immediately by the deafening impact. ``I didn't know what was happening,'' Gent said. ``Then I saw the train. Then it hit, and the bang was loud. ... I heard the scraping and the screeching of the steel all along the track.'' Passengers praised the train's crew, saying the evacuation was orderly. Amtrak spokeswoman Pat Kelly said dispatch was the responsibility of CSX Transportation, which owns the track. Donna Rohrer, a spokeswoman for CSX Transportation, which dispatches the trains that run on their tracks, said the truck successfully negotiated another CSX crossing earlier in the day in Tampa, but said her company had no idea the rig would be crossing the tracks in Intercession. ``For whatever reason, we were unaware that they were crossing this private crossing today,'' she said. CSX was notified in advance that the truck would be crossing tracks in Tampa. But the railroad was never notified that the truck was in trouble once it got stuck, Rohrer said. She said special toll-free emergency lines are available to law enforcement and emergency crews in every community crossed by CSX tracks, and that the line in the Intercession area never rang. ``All those calls are answered on the highest-priority basis,'' she said. Rohrer said reporters on the scene were told that witnesses tried to call the railroad before the Silver Meteor struck. ``We have no idea where that call went,'' Rohrer said. The first CSX knew of any problem was at 12:46.20, when the Kissimmee Police called the railroad's emergency center in Jacksonville. As darkness descended on a vista of twisted metal and yellow emergency police tape, Gent was asked: Whoever was at fault, was this the result of a failure to communicate? ``Yes,'' he said, ``it was.'' (Graphic available from KRT Graphic Service; call (202) 383-6064. Photo available from KRT Photo Service; call 202-383-6099. Photos move on KRT Photo Service and are posted to the ``KRT Daily Photos'' icon in category folder on PressLink the day the story moves. One week after transmission, photos are available via keyword search in the KRT Photo Archive on PressLink; call (800) 435-7578 or (202) 383-6099.)Amtrak train smashes into huge tractor-trailer, injuring at least 52. (Originated from Knight-Ridder Newspapers)
INTERCESSION CITY, Fla. _ An oversized tractor-trailer trapped across the tracks. An Amtrak passenger train rocketing around a long, sweeping curve. A series of cascading miscalculations and misunderstandings that left both crews unaware of each other and of impending disaster. The result: Amtrak's Silver Meteor, carrying 103 passengers and eight crew members, blindsided a truck carrying a mammoth, 82-ton generator Tuesday as state troopers frantically tried to flag down the train. At least 52 people were hurt, most with cuts and bruises. The first four cars of the eight-car train, bound from Tampa, Fla., to New York, were smashed and derailed. The impact crumbled the truck, trailer and generator and pushed them 150 yards down the tracks in a wooded, rural area about 10 miles southwest of Kissimmee in central Florida. ``It was like a slow-motion bomb going off,'' said Mark Robinson, a deliveryman who saw the crash. ``The train cars started twisting and turning off the track.'' The train's engineer, James Thomas, 46, said he never had a chance. Amtrak officials said Thomas needed at least a mile to stop the train, which was traveling at the authorized speed of 78 miles an hour. He had 30 yards. At most. ``We had just come around the curve and it was there,'' said Thomas. ``We hit Boom! Bang! Just like that.'' No fire erupted, but the impact raised a thunderhead of dust. As it cleared, dazed and bleeding passengers crawled from the train's windows and from the ripped fuselages of rail cars. Employees of a nearby, small plastics company comforted them on a patch of grass. Paramedics quickly established a triage center on the same patch of grass, now littered with rubber gloves and bloodstained towels. Helicopters and ambulances carried the most seriously injured to local hospitals. Others were treated on the spot. The uninjured were boarded on buses, one from nearby Disney World. ``A strange day for me, let me tell you,'' said the driver, identified by his Mickey Mouse badge as Steve. Chris Gent, a spokesman for the Kissimmee Utilities Authority, which owned the generator, was photographing the operation at the time of the accident. He watched helplessly as the very thing his company was determined to avoid happened anyway. ``All of a sudden the train was there,'' he said. ``Twenty of us were up on the track. I just yelled and everybody ran and took cover.'' Gent and Lt. Chuck Williams, a spokesman for the Florida Highway Patrol, provided this account of the accident _ and of an operation plagued at the end by miscalculations and misunderstandings: The $12.6 million generator was being slowly ferried from Tampa's port to a new power station being built west of Kissimmee. The 55-mile journey began at 11:30 p.m. Monday and was just ending at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday. The generator was so big that it had to be carried on an ``articulated'' trailer, one that is hinged in the middle and requires someone on the back to steer the rear section. The process is so slow and painstaking _ so likely to inhibit surrounding traffic _ that the truck was escorted, as required by the state Department of Transportation, by two highway patrol cars. Just a few hundred yards from its destination, a new power station called Cane Island, the trailer approached from the west along Old Tampa Road. But Gent said it could not make the sharp turn onto an access road and had clipped a stop sign as it tried. So, the subcontractor who owned the truck and was in charge of the moving job _ Roundtree Transport Co. of Tampa _ backed the trailer out and had it come around the other side, from the east. The turn was easier, but halfway across the track, the trailer scraped bottom and became stuck. Now, a crew began jacking it up; the truck had a special hydraulic system to lift the bottom over the rise created by the tracks. ``The tractor-trailer was raised as high as it would go, but it wasn't high enough,'' said Williams, the Highway Patrol spokesman. According to Gent, someone from Roundtree called the local Amtrak office to warn dispatchers of the trapped truck. He was told that the first train through at that point would not come until 1 p.m. and was led to believe it would be approaching from the east, Gent said. So, the crew had about a half-hour, according to Gent. They worked hurriedly, but without panic, he said. But within five minutes, according to Gent, a train barreled around a curve and came right at them _ from the west. The crossing gates came down, hitting the truck and trailer. The red lights flashed their warning. The two troopers who had escorted the truck and were now leaving, stopped and waved at the engineer. It was too late. The train was moving too quickly, the distance too short. The driver of the truck still struggled to get the truck off the tracks, but he could not. He jumped from the cab just as the train hit. He was knocked unconscious and was in critical condition Tuesday night at a local hospital. Gent said he heard no train horn. Other witnesses reported hearing a short blast from the horn followed immediately by the deafening impact. ``I didn't know what was happening,'' Gent said. ``Then I saw the train. Then it hit, and the bang was loud. ... I heard the scraping and the screeching of the steel all along the track.'' Passengers praised the train's crew, saying the evacuation was orderly. Amtrak spokeswoman Pat Kelly said dispatch was the responsibility of CSX Transportation, which owns the track. Donna Rohrer, a spokeswoman for CSX Transportation, which dispatches the trains that run on their tracks, said the truck successfully negotiated another CSX crossing earlier in the day in Tampa, but said her company had no idea the rig would be crossing the tracks in Intercession. ``For whatever reason, we were unaware that they were crossing this private crossing today,'' she said. CSX was notified in advance that the truck would be crossing tracks in Tampa. But the railroad was never notified that the truck was in trouble once it got stuck, Rohrer said. She said special toll-free emergency lines are available to law enforcement and emergency crews in every community crossed by CSX tracks, and that the line in the Intercession area never rang. ``All those calls are answered on the highest-priority basis,'' she said. Rohrer said reporters on the scene were told that witnesses tried to call the railroad before the Silver Meteor struck. ``We have no idea where that call went,'' Rohrer said. The first CSX knew of any problem was at 12:46.20, when the Kissimmee Police called the railroad's emergency center in Jacksonville. As darkness descended on a vista of twisted metal and yellow emergency police tape, Gent was asked: Whoever was at fault, was this the result of a failure to communicate? ``Yes,'' he said, ``it was.'' (Graphic available from KRT Graphic Service; call (202) 383-6064. Photo available from KRT Photo Service; call 202-383-6099. Photos move on KRT Photo Service and are posted to the ``KRT Daily Photos'' icon in category folder on PressLink the day the story moves. One week after transmission, photos are available via keyword search in the KRT Photo Archive on PressLink; call (800) 435-7578 or (202) 383-6099.)
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