Three-train wreck in Texas hurts 4

Cars from three freight trains sit jumbled Wednesday near Amarillo, Texas, after a wreck near dawn that derailed up to 30 cars and injured four crewmen. An eastbound BNSF Railway train rear-ended a stopped train, then a westbound train slammed into the first two trains.
Cars from three freight trains sit jumbled Wednesday near Amarillo, Texas, after a wreck near dawn that derailed up to 30 cars and injured four crewmen. An eastbound BNSF Railway train rear-ended a stopped train, then a westbound train slammed into the first two trains.

AMARILLO, Texas - Three freight trains ended up in chain-reaction wreck in the Texas panhandle before dawn Wednesday, derailing up to 30 cars and injuring four crew members including two critically.

An eastbound BNSF Railway train rear-ended a stopped train, just east of Amarillo, then moments later a westbound train crashed into the two-train wreck, according to the Department of Public Safety. The accident was reported shortly after 4:30 a.m.

“It sounded like thunder,” truck driver Sandy Strickland, who was nearby when the accident happened, told the Amarillo Globe-News.

Joe Faust, a spokesman for Fort Worth-based BNSF, said no hazardous material spilled and the trains were hauling flatbed cars carrying truck trailers.

The National Transportation Safety Board was sending a team to the scene.

Two workers on the first train suffered injuries not believed to be life-threatening. Two crew members on the second train were critically injured and transported to an Amarillo hospital, Faust said. Names of the workers and details of their injuries were not immediately released.

Preliminary estimates indicate between 20 and 30 cars derailed, Faust said. KFDA-TV reported that at least one locomotive ended up on its side.

Rail traffic was being rerouted and there was no immediate timetable for clearing the tracks, Faust said.

Front Section, Pages 5 on 09/26/2013

Upcoming Events