By Andru McCracken
Ever have a nightmare about your vehicle getting caught on a railroad track?
It happened to a lifted Chevy towing a large trailer near Summit River Lodge about 20km south of Valemount and the whole thing was caught on video and shared online.
The video shows the train smashing into the truck and trailer and sending them both flying.
The incident happened Sunday, February 25. According to an eyewitness, the truck and trailer got stuck crossing the tracks when making a sharp left-hand turn at an uncontrolled crossing.
The witness (who spoke on condition of anonymity due to their work) said the truck and trailer got stuck while a train was en route. The driver and passengers didn’t have time to free the vehicle, but they did exit the vehicle and get to safety. Fortunately no one was injured on the ground.
Kate Fenske, a Media Relations Manager for Canadian National Rail, said the incident happened at about 8:40a.m. that day.
“As seen in the video, the train struck an unoccupied truck and trailer. There were no injuries reported,” she said.
“If your vehicle gets stuck on a railway crossing, get out of the vehicle and call 911 or CN police at 1-800-465-9239.”
A commenter on the viral facebook video said that, as a locomotive engineer, it’s one of his worst nightmares, although he said engineers are not typically injured during these types of collisions.
“It is not very often that a locomotive or the crew of that locomotive […] are physically injured or damaged much! There is often psychological damage to one or more of the crew should the incident result in injury or death to the individual(s) in the vehicle we hit,” said the engineer.
The eyewitness said everyone involved is lucky.
“Hats off to the conductor for slowing down as much as he could to avoid making the situation so much more catastrophic,” they said.
Terry Power, proprietor of the Summit River Lodge went on social media on Tuesday to clarify that no one was hurt, that an incident like this hadn’t happened at the crossing ‘in the last 20 years or ever.’
“The trailer got caught in the snow bank and kicked the truck sideways. They had time to try and go back and forth but the truck just kept spinning,” he said.
Someone jumped out and tried pushing, but as the train got closer, the driver yelled for everyone to run clear of it.
“I assume the horn stopped blowing at impact because the conductor (had) seen everyone evacuate the vehicle safely,” said Power.
“To all our friends and family please be cautious whenever crossing any train tracks especially with trailer in tow.”
