Published January 13, 2015
Amtrak's (search) City of New Orleans train hit a truck at a railroad crossing Thursday, killing two men in the train's second fatal wreck in five days on a 10-mile span of track.
The men were in an electrical contractor's bucket truck, Tangipahoa Parish (search) sheriff's spokesman Chuck Reed said.
He said the impact knocked the Simpson Electric Co. (search) cab off its chassis and broke the windshield on the train's first engine.
The men were identified as Tyler Davis, 23, of Ponchatoula, and Dan Warren, 35, of Amite. The train's crew members andsengers were unhurt.
The wreck about 50 miles northwest of New Orleans was less than 10 miles from Roseland, where a man, his two daughters and his fiancee's daughter died Sunday when the City of New Orleans train hit their pickup truck.
Both crossings have only crossbuck signs, without gates or lights.
No track was damaged in Thursday's crash and the train did not derail, but two locomotives were damaged and leaked diesel, said Marc Magliari, spokesman for Amtrak in Chicago.
The trip to Chicago was canceled and passengers were taken back to New Orleans by bus, Magliari said. The next City of New Orleans was expected to leave on schedule Friday afternoon, he said.
Trains can run 70 mph or higher along the section of track where both accidents occurred. Magliari said the train's trip recorder would be checked to see how fast it was traveling Thursday.
The City of New Orleans runs almost the same route between Chicago and New Orleans as was used by the original Illinois Central train with that name, immortalized in Arlo Guthrie's hit song.
Also Thursday, an Amtrak train struck a car at a crossing in Bakersfield, Calif., killing one person in the car and seriously injuring another, authorities said.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/two-killed-in-weeks-second-la-train-crash