Eastern Railroad Discussion > A (Fortunately) Good Day in Marion - October 23, 2019

My son and I took the opportunity, while back east visiting family in central Ohio, to spend a morning at Marion Union Station.   It was a good day - fourteen trains between 9:50 AM and 1:10 PM.   The best part of the day, however, was what we missed seeing.  

We fortunately missed seeing a semi-tractor trailer get hit by a train on the Center Street crossing.   It happened this way:  First, a long northbound with distributed power passed by.  The northbound cleared the grade crossing, the gates went up, and the semi and the trailer began to cross the tracks.   What the truck driver did not know and could not see was a southbound coming right after the truck started across the crossing. As the southbound approached, the crossing gates came down in the middle of the trailer, between the cab and the load.  For a brief moment it appeared the truck driver was not going to get clear of the crossing ahead of the southbound, which you will hear me react to in the video at about 1:15 (apologies).   Fortunately, the driver WAS able to back up far enough to avoid getting hit.  In doing so, the truck twisted the crossing gate, which continued to function, though it was no longer parallel to the tracks.   NS quickly dispatched someone to re-align the gate, and within half an hour everything was back to normal.   In fairness to the truck driver, I doubt he/she could see the southbound, which was hidden by the northbound until the northbound cleared, and the crossing gates had gone up.    Had anything awful happened, it would have been the results of terrible timing.   Thankfully, nothing awful happened, though for a few seconds I thought it was going to.  

Pictures 1-3 are of the crossing gate down in the middle of the trailer, and an indication of how much the gate was re-aligned in the process.  

Picture 4-5 are of the NS employee re-aligning the gate.  

Picture 6 is of the Marion local.

 

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The video is below.

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Video attached.  

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I enjoyed the video.

Great video👍👍