May 15--LONG VIEW, N.C. -- Many people stopped to stare at the wreckage of a tractor-trailer torn in two, ripped apart by a train coming through Long View on Monday morning.
Long View Police Officer Raymond Denton said he was driving on 33rd Street, SW, at about 8 a.m. in the pouring rain when he saw a semi-truck stuck on the railroad tracks. He saw two men outside of the tractor-trailer, doing something with dollies. Denton radioed to communications, telling them to ask Norfolk Southern to stop the trains.
"They called back and said they couldn't get the train stopped, to get off the tracks," Denton said.
In less than a minute, a train struck the tractor-trailer. One part of the truck was stuck on one side of the tracks. The other was torn on the other side of the train, with the cab of the truck and the first third of the trailer on the other side of the tracks, near Main Avenue, NW, and Penelope Baptist Church.
The Norfolk Southern train was already going slowly, said Mark Pettit, Catawba County Fire Rescue Manager. The train usually goes slow through Long View at that time of the morning.
It took more than six hours to clear up the wreckage left behind. More than half-a-dozen agencies responded to Monday's accident, including a HAZMAT team. The semi-trailer, owned by CRST Expedited out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was hauling disodium trioxosilicate, a white powder that was a concern to cleanup crews.
"The chemical is reactive with water," Pettit said. "It would react with a cup of water, but it was diluted because of the large amounts of rain."
Officials covered up the remaining load. There was no environmental impact, according to officials with the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
The two men in the tractor-trailer, Timothy Brooks, 50, and Gregory Nagel, 57, both of Texas, were uninjured in the wreck.
The last time a train collided with a motor vehicle in Long View was about six years ago, according to the Long View Police Department.
Copyright 2012 - Hickory Daily Record, N.C.
