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Amtrak, truck crash leaves one person dead

ROUND ROCK, Texas – An Amtrak train with 104 passengers on board hit a garbage truck here yesterday killing the truck’s driver and critically injuring 11 people, including one seriously, according to news reports. Seven cars were also derailed.

Amtrak’s Texas Eagle, which runs from San Antonio to Chicago, was carrying 13 crewmembers. News reports say that the engineer, assistant engineer, and conductor were injured in the crash, along with passengers.

The crossing where the tracks pass through the horse farm where the accident occurred is guarded only by a stop sign. Of more than 18,000 rail crossings in Texas, more than 6,500 are private and not regulated by the state.

One of two locomotives that derailed caught fire, but it was quickly contained.

The truck driver, 27-year-old Cody Joe Pearson, worked for Central Texas Refuse. Most of the injured were treated at local hospitals and released.

UP improves coal service but grain deliveries lag

WASHINGTON – Union Pacific Railroad improved its coal deliveries last week, but continues to struggle to deliver last year’s grain harvest, according to the carrier’s latest filing with the Surface Transportation Board (STB).

Coals trains improved their round-trip performance to 6.8 days from 7.4 for the previous week. However, the figure for grain deliveries worsened. The average round trip between Nebraska and the Pacific Northwest slowed to 27.5 days from 22.6 days two weeks ago.

Average train speed increased to 14.6 mph from 13.5 mph two weeks ago. Statistics on system congestion improved for the second consecutive week as the number of delayed trains, the length of time of delays and the number of blocked terminals were all lower.

Shippers proposals rejected by board

WASHINGTON – The STB rejected proposals from about a dozen shipper groups who had sought to reverse the order in which the board reviews rail competitive issues relating to multi-railroad access to shipper facilities and rail profitability calculations.

Both issues were scheduled for review as a result of the agency’s April 17 decision to address rail service and competition. Steps to address carrier profitability issues are slated to move forward this month and carrier access to shipper facilities is set for August.

Town may end fight against NS rail facility

ATLANTA – A vote within the next two weeks may end the 18-month long fight against building a Norfolk Southern $97 million piggyback facility that the carrier wants to build on the northern border of the south Cobb County town of Austell.

Austell’s mayor says he now has the votes to move forward on the 475-acre truck-to-rail project, which the city rejected in 1996. In nearby Powder Springs, however, the mayor says he will still fight the project because of the increased truck traffic it will bring through his town.