Almost in my front yard a Metro Transit LRT train struck a car at the grade crossing at 42st and Hiwatha Ave in South MPLS. More details later.

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Milwaukee Road Matt

I guess I better make sure I catch the news. I hope no one was hurt or worse but them trains move pretty fast down that line.

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MyPhoto's
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They way it looks the guy driving made a left turn against the red arrow and drove west in the east bound lane (no crossing arm) and directly into the path of the northbound train traveling at 45 MPH. The SUV was destroyed with only a small hole and a few scratches to the LRT car, both the driver and passanger survived the crash and are expected to live. Just over 2 years ago there was a crash at this same intersection where the driver drove under the crossering arm and was killed by the train.

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Milwaukee Road Matt

Update, the investigation is complete, there was no fault on the part of Metro Transit, the LRT operator or a malfunction of the LRT car and or safety devices. The person driving the car was found to be under the influence and broke several traffic laws thus causing the accident. I can only hope that we have a better track (excuse the pun) record when the Northstar is up and running.

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Milwaukee Road Matt

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Milwaukee Road Matt

You'd think - we get safety drilled into our heads all the time. Trains are big, you have to respect them. It is pretty tough not to know that you really shouldn't do that [but I suppose if you don't have any common sense to start with all the lectures aren't going to help].

When I was working on the Hiawatha line we were always hoping that MN drivers were smarter, that is the last thing we needed. Nothing like an outbreak of dumb drivers to feed the anti-rail crowd...