retreat. joining me now is our own tom costello covering transportation for us. tom, give us the basics here. human error, technical error, what do they think happened, what have we been able to recreate. first of all, federal investigators are on the scene from the federal railroad investigation and amtrak has their investigators on the scene. witnesses sate crossing guards, the arms that come down and the fight lites were functioning. and so you ve got to now wonder why was it this trash truck was on the tracks. because the train always has the right-of-way. there is some initial reporting from the scene from witnesses who were suggesting that this trash truck may have been trying to beat the train. and as we know, boy, that is a deadly mistake. we ve seen it time and time and time again. i mean, we have 260 people dying every year in motor vehicle crashes with trains and we have
one of them seriously injured. the driver of the trash truck did not survive. and then one member of congress who was on the train taken to nearby charlottesville medical center for
conference. how are you doing? i think everyone on the train is shaken up. going into an accident of this sort, everybody has some bumps and bruises. fortunate fortunately, only minor injuries on the train. there were a couple individuals that were transported to the hospital just for observation. but we all feel fortunate that everybody on the train had minor injuries at best. but our prayers do go out to the three individuals in the trash truck. one fatality and two air lifted out. we hit the train and the truck at immediate impact with no braking. it certainly was a surprise to all of us. there was at least one member of congress who said that at least least most everyone came through it okay that it could have been much worse. are you having a little bit of a
in by somebody there showing this trash truck. sort of hard to make it out but that is the trash truck that was apparently hit by the amtrak train. it appears if you look at the right side that picture is being taken from possibly inside the train and obviously it s a trash truck. not easy to see the extent of the damages are. curbelo said he sees minor injuries, cuts and bruises. the person we heard is injured, and we don t have any detail on this, might have been standing and that might have been the issue the person was standing and the train hits a truck, comes to a stop, people go flying. we re now getting pictures in. these are from congressman curbelo he took on the train. we noted earlier it s actual members of congress or their own doctor helping people, you can see there is official first aid,
reporter: a couple of notes here, andrea, to begin with you may have heard senator flake say he had been told actually stop right there. take a look at the shot. there is a crossing light there. the question is if there s a crossing arm. there are flashing lights. among the priorities for the investigation will be were they working, was there an arm, a railroad arm that was supposed to come down, did it come down, did this trash truck try to beat the train or was it stuck on the tracks? but it does not appear this is a cattle grade crossing where you kind of take your chances when you go across. there should have been functioning lights so that will be part of the investigation. the ntsb and the railroad administration will be launching the investigation we expect rather quickly.