(The following article by Tonya Smith-King was posted on the Jackson Sun website on November 10.)
JACKSON, Tenn. — A crew spent Wednesday morning cleaning up diesel fuel spilled late Tuesday when a train hit a tractor-trailer truck at a crossing on the CSX railroad between Humboldt and Gibson.
No one was injured in the incident, Gibson County Fire Chief Carmon Lannom said. The truck driver abandoned the truck before the train struck it.
Pamela Marshall, a spokeswoman with the Tennessee Department of Transportation, said the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency handled the cleanup. Neither she nor Lannom knew how much fuel spilled from the truck.
The accident happened about 7 p.m. Tuesday at the railroad crossing on Chandler Road in Gibson County.
The driver was crossing the tracks when the truck’s left front wheel dropped off the edge of the road, causing the truck to get stuck on the tracks, Lannom said. Marshall said TDOT was told the truck’s load was too wide for the crossing.
“He couldn’t move his truck,” Lannom said. The train’s driver “saw him and tried to stop and couldn’t. He didn’t have enough time.”
Lannom added that it was not a situation where the truck driver was trying to beat the train. The truck got stuck on the track, and the train came upon it, Lannom said.
The truck driver was from Mississippi, he added. Lannom’s report of the incident wasn’t complete, and he did not have the driver’s name.
The driver was delivering cross ties to the site, Lannom said. Passing rails that allow one train to pass another are being installed at the location, Lannom said.
There are no flashing lights or crossing gates at the intersection, Lannom added. But there is a sign off the gravel road warning of a railroad crossing ahead, Lannom said.
Marshall said TDOT was notified of the accident and is awaiting a final report. The first thing TDOT always wants to know about a train accident is if a problem with the crossing caused the accident, she said.
Preliminary findings from Tuesday’s incident indicate the accident was “not the result of any malfunction or anything at the crossing,” Marshall said.
Lannom was not aware of any other accidents at that crossing.
Last Thanksgiving, a train derailment in Gibson just past the Esquire Estes Road railroad crossing forced the evacuation of eight to 10 homes because of the hazardous materials that train was carrying. The train’s cargo was not disturbed, but about 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel spilled. There also were no injuries in that incident.
In another incident in 2001, police said a train hit a pickup truck when the pickup’s driver apparently tried to beat the train across the tracks on Tenn. 186.