Background
Crozet is a town of 9224 people (as of 2020) in the far east of the United States of America, located in the federal state of Virginia (VA) 119km/74mi northwest of Richmond and 44km/27mi south of Harrisonburg (both measurements in linear distance).
Crozet lies on the Rivanna Subdivision, an unelectrified, partially double-tracked main line connecting Gladstone in the west with Rivanna in the east. The line is owned by Florida-based CSX Transportation, a freight train operator formed in 1980. Due to that ownership the 192km/119mi line is mostly used for freight traffic, but CSX does allow it to be used by the occasional Amtrak passenger train as well. The section of the line at Crozet has a speed limit of 96.5kph/60mph for passenger trains and 64kph/40mph for freight trains. The site of the accident sees the rail line crossed by Lanetown Road, a 35mph surface street. The level crossing is equipped with lights, half-width barriers and a bell to warn motorists about approaching trains.
The Vehicles Involved
On the day of the accident a Freightliner Business M2 trash truck was heading southbound on Lanetown Road, carrying a 30 years old driver and two passengers. The truck had been built in April 2017 as a three-axle truck with a three-seat cab and bare frame, and was fitted with the rear container and lifting mechanism to collect trash by a specialized company in August of that year. The cab was equipped with three-point seatbelts (the kind you find in most modern cars) for the driver and outside passenger, while the center passenger seat was equipped with a lap belt. The exact size and weight of the truck, which was partially loaded at the time of the accident, is unknown.
Over 100 members of the Republican Party, their partners and children had booked an annual vacation at a luxury resort near the city of White Sulphur Springs (West Virginia). To get there from Washington D.C. they had chartered an Amtrak train for their exclusive use, which was nicknamed “The Congressional Special” (Train Number 923) due to its passengers. The train consisted of six four-axle passenger cars, two café cars and a locomotive on either end with one pulling the train while the other, being controlled remotely, was pushing.
Pulling the train on the westbound trip to White Sulphur Springs was Amtrak locomotive number 145, a General Electric P42DC “Genesis”. The P42DC is a four-axle passenger train diesel locomotive from General Electric’s “Genesis”-series and acts as a successor to the P40DC introduced in 1992. The Genesis-series locomotives measure 21m/69ft in length at a weight of 121.7 metric tons and can be easily identified by their relatively streamlined design compared to most American locomotives of their time. The P42DC is powered by a turbocharged V16 diesel engine with 175l/10679cu in of displacement producing 3170kW/4250hp for a top speed of 177kph/110mph. At the time of the accident Amtrak #145 was wearing a special retro-inspired livery differing from the standard livery, making it a so-called “heritage unit”. It was crewed by a driver and his assistant at the time of the accident, and likely due to the special status of the passengers a police officer was also riding along in the cab of the locomotive.
The accident
On the 31st of January 2018 The Congressional Special is approaching the Lanetown Road level crossing at approximately 11:14am, travelling at 96.5kph/60mph. The rail line ahead of the crossing runs in a long left hand turn between rows of trees, due to which visibility of the level crossing is late and generally limited. At the same time a trash truck operated by Time Disposal LLC is heading southwest towards the level crossing as the three-man crew onboard had been told to come to the aid of another truck who was at capacity with more trash yet to collect in its area. Despite the cab of the truck being fitted with seatbelts for all occupants none of the men were using them.
The level crossing came into view for the locomotive crew at 11:15am, with the driver’s assistant (referred to as the foreman by the report) later recalling seeing the trash truck to the north of the level crossing (see above photo). The train driver (often referred to in the USA as the engineer) later recalled seeing the truck enter the level crossing by moving around the closed northern barrier, with the flashing lights also being visible due to the angle of the road to the tracks. He initially felt certain that the truck would clear the crossing and activated the train horn as a warning, only for the certainty to go out the window a second later when the truck stopped right on the track.
The train’s data-logger showed an emergency stop being triggered by the driver at 11:16:37am, with the train dumping air pressure and applying full brakes by 11:16:39am. The relatively short train rapidly slows down, but not quite rapidly enough. Amtrak #145 strikes the rear left hand side of the truck at 11:16:42am, still travelling at 56kph/35mph. The impact tears the trash container off the truck’s frame and rips it open while bending the back of the truck’s frame 45° to the right as the truck rotates around its front end, spilling pieces of itself and its cargo. The trash container is thrown clear, ending up on its side several feet down the rail line. Both passengers are ejected from the truck’s cab, with the center seat passenger suffering fatal injuries, while the driver strikes the steering wheel and dashboard but remains inside the cab. The train’s leading axle derails during the collision, aiding in the train’s deceleration post-impact which brings it to a halt 20 seconds after the collision. The truck’s center seat passenger is the sole fatality, with both his coworkers, four train crew members and 3 train passengers suffering injuries due to the collision and the train’s abrupt deceleration.
Aftermath
The train’s foreman notified the local dispatcher of the collision within the same minute of its occurrence, with the dispatcher alerting the emergency services. The surviving truck passenger was airlifted to a hospital soon after the accident, with ambulances taking away the truck’s driver, three train passengers and an undefined crewmember of the train while the remaining injured survivors were treated at the site. The remaining passengers were noted down and then continued their journey by bus in the early afternoon.
Investigators examined both the train and the wreckage of the truck on site, noting in the report that no part of the truck had remained undamaged with the entire driver’s cab being bent and partially separated from the frame along with severe damage to the suspension and brakes. However, as far as they could tell regardless of the damage, there was no sign of a defect existing before the accident. In their opinion there was no technical reason for the truck to be stationary in the train’s path for several seconds prior to impact.
The investigation next turned its attention to the train, when data from the train’s data-logger and onboard camera showed a few seconds passing between the truck coming into view and an emergency stop being triggered. They were told by train drivers that vehicles, even large trucks, routinely “jump” crossings by driving around closing or closed barriers, which allowed the train drivers to gain somewhat of an ability to estimate if a vehicle is going to clear a crossing in time. With this in mind it was decided that the driver’s decision to lay on the horn instead of triggering an emergency stop immediately was reasonable and didn’t place him at even only partial fault in the accident. The truck appeared in the driver’s field of view a few seconds before the accident, and until 3 seconds prior to impact it appeared like it would clear the crossing in time.
The truck driver, who suffered minor injuries, refused to be interviewed by the investigation. He didn’t have the option to refuse a blood sample, which was taken 5 hours after the accident and tested positive for both THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the chemical which creates the “high” when consuming marijuana) and gabapentin, an anti-seizure medication used to treat chronic pains. The latter medication acts on the central nervous system and carries warnings about drowsiness and reduced driving competence when purchased “over the counter” (meaning legally, at a pharmacy). When checking the truck driver’s medical records the investigators couldn’t find a prescription for the medication, though, implying that he had acquired it illegally and was not using it for its intended purpose as pain relief.
The investigation proceeded to acquire an identical truck due to the truck driver’s continued refusal to cooperate with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB, which ran the investigation), reenacting the final meters of the truck’s journey. They found that the driver could easily (but still purposely) use the road’s oncoming lane to go around the northern barrier, but would then have found himself jammed between the southern barrier and a mailbox (which was mowed down in the accident). At this point, proceeding would have seen noteworthy damage to the barrier and/or the mailbox, and possibly minor damage to the left hand side of the truck. The truck driver could have tried to back out of the crossing into the oncoming lane, but didn’t do so. His own lane, on the northern side of the crossing, was occupied by a motorist in a car, but this was no reason not to back into the empty oncoming lane.
The investigation, taking input from the witnessing motorist, the reenactment-driver and the situation created in the reenactment, figured that the driver was driving under the influence of two sedatives (already breaking state and federal law) when he entered the crossing (apparently not a rare occurrence), and then, possibly due to the effects of the drug-mixture in his system, was unable to decide how to proceed once he found himself “trapped” on the tracks which left him stopped in the path of the train.
When contacted by the NTSB the truck driver’s employer stated that they had zero tolerance for drug use and ran drug tests both when hiring and at random times after that. According to their records the driver involved in the accident had passed all seven tests he had had to perform ahead of the accident. The NTSB accepted the documentation, but informed the company that their chosen pharmacy-bought urine tests were insufficient to the legal requirements for truck drivers in the USA. However, the choice of test kit had had no impact on the results in the case of this driver. The report still notes that the company has since brought their testing up to the required standards after being informed of the inadequacy.
The investigation concluded that the driver was consciously driving under the influence of both an illegal sedative and an illegally consumed legal one, which significantly impaired his reaction-time and decision making when he entered the crossing (something explicitly pointed out to also being done by sober drivers time after time) and found himself stuck between a barrier and a mailbox. In the eyes of the investigation a sober truck driver may have been able to either reverse out of the crossing or figure out that scraping the side of the truck against a barrier damages it less than being hit by a few hundred tons of train. The driver involved in the accident, however, was either unable to come to this conclusion or failed to act on it within the time he had to avoid the accident. It’s worth noting at this point that, generally, modern level crossing barriers are designed to break away, meaning even a small car can easily force itself through them at low speed if needed.
The official report dedicates a whole chapter to the fact that none of the truck’s occupants were wearing seatbelts, allowing two of them to be ejected from the cab. This caused fatal injuries to the center seat passenger, while the outside passenger survived the accident in critical condition and suffered permanent injuries. The report notes that the NTSB has made seatbelt advocacy one of its main recurring topics since the agency’s inception in 1967. The trash truck’s cab had maintained nearly full survival space during the accident, with the bending and buckling of the cab only posing a minor reduction in interior space and not managing to tear the seats from their mounting points. In the eyes of the investigators the center seat passenger, despite only having a lap belt (which offers worse protection than a three-point seatbelt) would have likely survived the accident, as being ejectd during a rotation accident is far less likely when buckled in. Furthermore, his coworker on the outside seat would have also most likely have remained inside the cab, significantly lessening the risk of severe injury.
The report points to research that having and using seatbelts in trucks or buses reduces the fatality-risk in an accident by 77% due to reduced “ragdolling” (being thrown around the interior of the vehicle) and unlikeliness of being ejected from the vehicle. US-States with enforced mandatory seatbelt laws showed 91% average seatbelt usage while those without such laws showed 82%. Virginia had regulations mandating seatbelt use for commercial drivers and front seat passengers, but no explicit law/enforcement. The report thus closes with a single recommendation, repeating the request to the state of Virginia to enforce seatbelt usage for all seats equipped with seatbelts in both passenger cars, buses and trucks in order to improve accident safety both with and without the involvement of trains.
The driver of the truck was charged with involuntary manslaughter and maiming while driving under the influence (of impairing substances) in summer of 2018, but was acquitted on both charges by February 2019. While further consequences against him are unknown it’s relatively safe to assume that he lost his job due to driving while on drugs.
All a Conspiracy?
Within a few hours of the accident conspiracy theories popped up on Twitter claiming that the accident was a deliberate attack on the train and/or hadn’t happened at all and/or different to what was being told, with different people claiming different reasons why this would be done. The main argument was that some photos showed a black and silver locomotive with obvious front end damage among trees, while others showed a silver and blue locomotive with no visible damage at the level crossing. This was presented as proof that images from two different trains were being used, and/or that the rescue effort was being staged.
The boring, simple explanation is that the train had a locomotive at either end so that it could drive to White Sulphur Springs and back east without the locomotive needing to be moved from one end of the train to the other. And while the leading (western) locomotive carried the distinct heritage-livery the rear locomotive, while of the same type, carried Amtrak’s regular silver and blue livery. After the collision (which caused the damage to the leading locomotive) the heritage-unit came to a stop a short distance down the line next to some trees, while the back of the train, with the intact silver-blue locomotive, stopped at the level crossing next to the truck’s wreckage.
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This is the first time I have come across conspiracy theories when researching a rail accident, but a train filled exclusively with one party’s politicians and a country that has a two-party system with what tends to be extremely strong attachment to one’s preferred side might just be the necessary ingredients to cook up a conspiracy based of, essentially, just different paint on different units of the same locomotive-model.
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A kind reader is posting the installments on reddit for me, I cannot interact with you there but I will read the feedback and corrections. You can find the post right here.
