Truck Hits Train, One Dead

One person is dead after a truck hit a train at a North Fort Worth railroad crossing.

It happened just after 7 a.m. in the 100 block of Northeast 38th Street near Business 287 east of Meacham Airport.

Fort Worth Police said the empty Burlington Northern Santa Fe coal train was going through the intersection when the driver of a Dodge Dakota pickup truck ran through the crossing arms and hit the moving train.

The only person in the pickup, the driver, was killed according to MedStar.

"The railroad arm was down. He went through the crossing arm and collided with the back portion of the train that was moving northbound," said Sgt. Pedro C. Criado from the Fort Worth Police Department.

BNSF spokesman Joe Faust said the truck rammed into the 102nd of 119 cars. 

Officers insist the driver should have seen it.

"Everything was functioning. At this point, the bell was ringing, the railroad arm was down to alert drivers there's a train on the tracks," said Criado.

BNSF tells NBC 5 that the train’s speed limit is 40 miles per hour. The preliminary investigation shows the locomotive engineer and conductor, the two workers on the train at the time, didn't even feel the crash. It finally came to a stop about a mile down the tracks.

Fort Worth police are recreating the crash, trying to determine why the driver drove through crossing arms.

"I don't want to assume anything, we have traffic investigators here on the scene," said Criado. 

Investigators hope the medical examiner and toxicology tests can reveal exactly what happened.

Faust said the crash is not blocking the tracks or impacting operations.

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