News

Nov 04, 2023

‘Like a bomb.’ Train slams into tractor

A train barreled toward a tractor-trailer, slamming into it near a busy gas

A train barreled toward a tractor-trailer, slamming into it near a busy gas station in South Carolina, video shows.

"It sounded like a bomb had went off," Corey Anthony told McClatchy News in a phone interview. "It was definitely a lot louder than I thought it was going to be."

Anthony, a UPS driver, was driving his regular route April 3 when he saw a tractor-trailer stuck on train tracks. The driver of the stopped truck had gotten out, but Anthony said he knew a train was scheduled to come through the area soon.

That's when he pulled into a Hot Spot gas station and started filming. He was recording as the train crashed into the truck, sending debris into a Spartanburg County ditch.

"Everybody that was around got really lucky because it could have been way, way worse," said Anthony, whose video showed several vehicles at gas pumps across the street from the tracks.

S.C. Highway Patrol said the crash happened at about noon along Fairforest Road. The truck, which had a low trailer, was trying to cross the elevated train tracks when the bottom of it got caught and wouldn't budge, Master Trooper Mitchell Ridgeway told McClatchy News in a phone interview.

In Anthony's video, the train can be heard barreling down the track as lights flash and a crossing arm is down. Though one vehicle backed up to give the train space, the tractor-trailer next to it sat stationary just before impact.

"It's kind of like that ‘oh my God’ moment, a once-in-a-lifetime thing that you’ll actually see that in person, much less have time and think about pulling your phone out and videoing it," Anthony told McClatchy News.

Anthony said the train pushed a load of concrete off the trailer before stopping a few hundred yards down the tracks. As he took a break from work, he saw first responders rush to the crash site.

The crash closed the road, which later reopened. No one from the truck or the train was injured, according to troopers.

Driver dodges railroad barrier and dies after train pushes truck down tracks, SC cops say

Four people killed after car crashes into train in South Carolina, officials say