San Francisco-to-Chicago Amtrak hits crane in Nebraska
An Amtrak train headed from California to Chicago struck a demolition crane in southwest Nebraska, forcing two locomotives and three passenger cars off the rails but causing no major injuries, officials said.
The train, which was running on Amtrak’s California Zephyr route from Emeryville, Calif., to Chicago, had 175 passengers and 17 crewmembers on board when it struck the crane at about 8 a.m. near Benkleman, which is near Nebraska’s border with Kansas and Colorado.
The two locomotives that left the tracks tipped over, but the three derailed passenger cars did not, Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said. The seven other passenger cars remained on the track.
Those hurt in the crash were taken to hospitals, where some of them were treated for back, shoulder and neck injuries. None of the injuries were critical.
The crane was tearing down an old grain bin about 4 miles west of Benkelman, Frasier said. Magliari said somehow the train collided with the crane. “Our understanding is a portion of a crane working on a demolition project near the tracks became an obstruction to us as our train approached. Because a portion of this train was obstructing the tracks, we collided with it,” he said.
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