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OT: Texas - Semi transporting wind turbine blade gets wrecked by train

Spud

Spud

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2006
Location
Brookfield, Wisconsin
The semi was stopped momentarily before the railroad crossing guard comes down. Then after it comes does, the driver still stays put for about 14 seconds with the guard on the blade. If the guard comes down on a vehicle, it's time to haul ass out of there.

 
I saw that last week, its not too far from my Tx place. Its a pretty screwy intersection, especially for a rig that long. Hwy 80 does a hard right, on basically a small town narrow street, onto 183, then across RR, then immediate left back onto 80. The trains sail thru Luling, not sure why they don't slow down, I would expect the trucking co to coordinate with RR for that crossing, but guess that did not happen.

Sure hope the City Market BBQ place is ok:D
 
dalmatiangirl61 said:
I saw that last week, its not too far from my Tx place. Its a pretty screwy intersection, especially for a rig that long. Hwy 80 does a hard right, on basically a small town narrow street, onto 183, then across RR, then immediate left back onto 80. The trains sail thru Luling, not sure why they don't slow down, I would expect the trucking co to coordinate with RR for that crossing, but guess that did not happen.

Sure hope the City Market BBQ place is ok:D
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Logistics company screwed up then, with the route planning and communication with the railroad.
 
Spud said:
The semi was stopped momentarily before the railroad crossing guard comes down.
Click to expand...
Why was he stupid enough to stop on the tracks ? Buses all know to WAIT until there is clear room on the other side, look down and up the tracks, then go.

Even if he was stupid (which he was) those guards give a long time. There was no room on the right to muscle over ? Couldn't get on the horn hard and go up the middle ? Even a two-lane road has room for three if you have to.

Shitty driver. No excuse.
 
dalmatiangirl61 said:
I'm getting a document from 2019, not seeing a "crash post", see a "collision post", but not seeing how any of that applies to the crash shown above?????
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tomaito tomaato....crash/collision post means the crew didn't/doesn't/won't get a scratch.
Designed for qty (1 million) pounds of force.
 
shouldn't something that large have a crew leading and following?

{I see they did, but someone wasn't doing their job]

HOly crap on the reverse angle what was the truck or whatever trying to run in there, it got creamed
 
EmanuelGoldstein said:
Why was he stupid enough to stop on the tracks ? Buses all know to WAIT until there is clear room on the other side, look down and up the tracks, then go.

Even if he was stupid (which he was) those guards give a long time. There was no room on the right to muscle over ? Couldn't get on the horn hard and go up the middle ? Even a two-lane road has room for three if you have to.

Shitty driver. No excuse.
Click to expand...

Looks to me like they were having a hard time getting the rear of trailer around the corner, you can see its taking out the crossing signal when he finally says f'it and gets moving, about 5 seconds too late....
 
EmanuelGoldstein said:
Why was he stupid enough to stop on the tracks ? Buses all know to WAIT until there is clear room on the other side, look down and up the tracks, then go.

Even if he was stupid (which he was) those guards give a long time. There was no room on the right to muscle over ? Couldn't get on the horn hard and go up the middle ? Even a two-lane road has room for three if you have to.

Shitty driver. No excuse.
Click to expand...

Yup, I had an uncle that drove fuel tanker semi, and he said all that ^^^ and added, to never shift gears when crossing.
 
One would like to think that this sort of incident would be rare. But the linked video has several of them.

It's like the accident report in general aviation where some bright star gets out of an airplane with the prop still spinning, and said plane rolls away and strikes and generally kills or destroys people, vehicles, buildings. One would THINK that would only happen like once in all of history. Turns it happens every 2 or 3 years. Really. There's that large a pool of stupidity in the world.

I read up on trucking (thinking about a CDL) at one point, and the whole "don't stop on the tracks, don't change chears, don't fiddle with things that might stall the engine" thing is in law, in training, and so on. You apparently can't get a CDL without having this beaten into you.

It's not like trains or the limits of their braking are a new found hazard.

And I'm sure railroad crews find all of this just so special....
 
dalmatiangirl61 said:
Its a small town, depending on where it was headed, that is the route thru the town. Of course it might just be that they wanted to stop for BBQ:D
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I suppose it was going to a windmill farm? Maybe Texas is different, but all the ones I have seen are in rural areas that can be accessed off a nice large highway or frontage road next to one.
 
I know that intersection, it's stupid but it's par for rural Texas. So many of these highways started as two different roads that TxDot had to find a way to link together in a town without knocking down buildings. I agree that the accident is the fault of the guy planning the route but to be fair, there's a good chance that it was the only route he could find without going 100 miles out of the way or through dirt roads. It's also a good chance that they were detoured from the route they preferred and while most towns will have signage to give a clear path for through trucks, they always consider that to be your standard 53' semi. Anything bigger's a crap-shoot.
 
CITIZEN F16 said:
I suppose it was going to a windmill farm? Maybe Texas is different, but all the ones I have seen are in rural areas that can be accessed off a nice large highway or frontage road next to one.
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My guess, is that it was coming from Houston or somewhere on the coast, I-10 is not too far from there. From that intersection it was either going to get on 183, or Hwy 80, both of which would get it further into central Tx. Wind farms are popping up everywhere in Tx, without knowing origin/destination, hard to say why that route was chosen, but its only route from I-10 to hwy80/183 in Luling.
 
"Special" ??
Home | Operation Lifesaver

Also, there is counseling for crews.
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"special" as in "bloody awful" - it's a sarcastic reference (in this case) - like surely this has got to be one of the biggest fears of any train crew - second to what - a head on with another train? and I would think the "what is the idiot doing" vibe would get to people as well.

yes, there would be a serious need for counseling...
 
Some dickwad drove an oversize load into an overpass on I93 a few weeks ago. I can see why they hit the low bridges on Storrow drive, but an Interstate?
We have been talking about the shortage of truck drivers for years here, so I guess the average IQ has dropped.
 
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