A fourth person has died and more than 150 people were injured in rural Missouri after an Amtrak train crashed Monday into a dump truck, derailing all but one of the train’s cars, officials said.
The train, headed from Los Angeles to Chicago, plowed into the truck near the town of Mendon, northwest of Columbia, at a gravel road’s uncontrolled railway crossing, unmarked by electronic signals or crossing arms.
Three people were pronounced dead in the crash Monday — two from the train and one from the dump truck — but Missouri State Highway Patrol officials announced Tuesday that a fourth person had died, also from the train. That person died after being transported to University Hospital in Columbia.
Officials did not identify any of the people who died in the crash.
There were 275 passengers aboard the Southwest Chief train with 12 crew members, Highway Patrol officials said in a statement Tuesday, about 150 of who were transported to 10 area hospitals for injuries ranging from “minor to serious.”
The crash came one day after another Amtrak train collided with a car in California’s East Bay, also at a rural railroad crossing, killing three people. Eighty-five people were on the train, which was traveling from Stockton to Martinez. There were no reported injuries among the train passengers and crew, officials said.
Drivers approaching the rural crossing in Missouri’s Chariton County would see two black-and-white X-shaped signs, called crossbucks, that often read “railroad crossing,” according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s database of railroad crossings. But the crossing was not equipped with flashing lights, bells, pavement markings or gate arms.
The crossing was identified for upgrades this year, which could include lights, gates and other roadway improvements, at a cost of $400,000, according to an infrastructure plan published this year by the Missouri Department of Transportation. But department spokesperson Linda Horn said the project had not yet begun. She said transportation officials were still working with BNSF officials and the county to “develop and agreed upon solution and schedule,” then hire a contractor to complete the work.
The location of the Sunday crash in East Bay was also a rural railroad crossing, also an unpaved road without electronic signals or crossing arms, said Steve Aubert, the fire marshal with the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District. He said in that area the trains are allowed to travel up to 80 mph through the rural community.
“That fast, it’s going to take them a mile and half to even stop,” Aubert said. He said there is a sign before the railroad crossing, but “no guards, no signals, no nothing.”
