Three missing crew members (click here) from the two freight trains that collided head-on in the Texas Panhandle are presumed dead, the Texas Department of Public Safety said Wednesday.
Emergency personnel at the scene of Tuesday's collision about 25 miles northeast of Amarillo have moved to a recovery operation, DPS Sgt. Dan Buesing said. Each train had a two-member crew. One man jumped in the moments before the crash and remained hospitalized Wednesday with injuries that are not considered life-threatening.
The two BNSF Railway freight trains were on the same track when they collided, triggering a fireball and causing containers and cars to tumble onto one another in a pileup. The wreckage continued to smolder early Wednesday as crews worked to remove the charred, twisted box cars from the tracks...The article to the right is from 1998. (click here) Bangor Daily News, August 3, 1998.
It was as recent as 2011 that Texas faced exploding sidewalks (click here), melting and warping train rails, the Fisher Reservoir was red with soil falling into the water contaminating it and Texas agriculture failed completely.
There is a real chance whoever put two trains on the same track did so while realizing other rails were not available. I doubt sincerely anyone did this deliberately, although law enforcement needs to investigate, but there could be a real problem with the railroads. Freight companies should consider sending their freight to more northern ports.
