'Lucky' driver walks away: Train-semi crash splits trailer, cab

COLUMBUS -- A truck, northbound on 340th Avenue, four miles west of Duncan was struck by a westbound Union Pacific Railway train shortly after 8:30 this morning.

A call on the collision came to the Platte County Sheriff’s Office at 8:40 a.m.

Members of the Duncan Volunteer Fire Department, the Columbus Fire Department, and the Platte County Sheriff’s Department responded to the scene.

No injuries were reported in the incident. The driver, who refused to identify himself at the scene, received a bump to the head.

At the scene, the tanker trailer, which was severed from the cab, came to rest along side the east-west track on the railway’s south side. The cab ended up on the north side of the train.

Platte County Sheriff Deputy Dane Jensen said the tanker trailer was carrying liquid feed byproducts from Archer Daniels Midland east of Columbus.

“He was very lucky,” Jensen said of the driver.

A Union Pacific spokesperson issued the following statement by phone following the incident.

“At approximately 8:30 this morning a westbound, 125-car, empty coal train traveling westbound from Illinois to North Platte Nebraska struck a truck obstructing the railway in Duncan,” said James Barnes, director of media information for Union Pacific. “The driver of the truck received non-life threatening injuries. There were no injuries reported among railway employees.”

Barnes said some trains were delayed for a brief time, but that rail traffic had been restored as of his phone call at 11 a.m.

“There was no release of any harmful chemicals in this incident and fortunately there no more serious injuries reported,” Barnes said. “The Union Pacific urges any driver who finds their vehicles stalled on railway tracks to abandon the vehicle, get as far away as possible and call 911 to report the obstruction. In this way the railroad may be able to stop rail traffic and avoid this type of incident.”

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