A Union Pacific train towing 68 cars full of molten sulfur collided with an Allied Van Lines tractor trailer truck at about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at the County Road 104 railroad crossing near U.S. 301 in Sumter County.
If this collision sounds eerily familiar, it is.
In May, a CSX train sliced through a truckload of watermelon at that same railroad crossing.
In Tuesday’s accident, the landing gear of the truck driven by Ernest Eugene Temple, 56, of Virginia Beach, Va. became impaled at the rail crossing, according to a report from Florida Highway Patrol which investigated the accident. James Lee Carter Jr.. 49, of Norfolk, Va. was a passenger in the truck.
The train conductor, 63-year-old Robert Denton of Georgia, saw the accident and declared an emergency through his dispatch and attempted to stop to avoid the collision but was unsuccessful. The train did not derail. Scott Dixon, 33, also of Georgia was riding in the train, too.
No one was injured.
