Trio escapes serious injury in vehicle-train collision

This truck was struck by a train at the 18th Street crossing last week, but the three passeners all escaped serious injury.

Elmore County Deputy Chris Banks looked at the mangled dark blue Toyota SR5 and shook his head.

"These people were lucky," he said.

Sunday night, just before 7 p.m., the Toyota and its three occupants had stopped at the 18th Street crossing of the railroad tracks, then attempted to proceed across -- directly into the path of an oncoming southbound train.

The truck was towing a small fishing boat and the train struck the combination almost exactly where the boat trailer and the truck were hooked up, ripping apart the rear end of the Toyota and flipping it upside down about 50 feet away, while destroying the boat.

The three occupants of the truck, driver Raymond Olsen, 47, and passengers Andrew Schloss, 20, and Oliver Williams, 18, were taken from the scene by air ambulance to St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center for treatment of their injuries. Schloss and Williams were released Monday and Olsen was still hospitalized but listed in good condition.

The train was not traveling at high speed, possibly no more than 32 mph, at the time of the collision, a factor Banks said contributed to the survival of the truck's occupants. It's believed the engineer had time to begin applying his brakes before the train, which had just left the Simplot grain area pulling more than 40 empty grain cars, hit the truck.

Banks said it was unlikely any citations would be issued, but his preliminary investigation indicated either the driver did not pay attention when he came to the stop sign at the crossing, or did not see the train. The crossing occurs at a sharp angle to the tracks at the top of a steep incline "and sometimes it's hard to see back down the tracks, especially if there's a passenger who might block the line of sight," he said.

According to the Federal Railroad Administration records, Sunday's accident was the fifth to occur at that crossing. In 1996, a beet truck was hit on the crossing by a slow-moving train, but the driver wasn't seriously injured. In 1999 a hay truck stalled on the crossing and the trailer of the semi was destroyed, but the driver wasn't injured. In 2002 a driver failed to stop at the intersection and had his truck clipped by a train, causing only minor damage.

But in 1997, the crossing turned deadly when a car with four people in it, including two Union Pacific employees, stopped and proceeded directly into the path of a train moving at just under 80 mph. All four of the people, two men and two women, were killed.