ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / August 30, 2000

RESERVE – An 18-wheeler and a pickup truck were heavily damaged in a collision with a Kansas City Southern freight train Monday morning at the railroad crossing on West 19th Street in Reserve.

Amazingly, there were no injuries involved in the accident.

Shortly before noon, an 18-wheel truck owned by Schneider National Truck Lines and driven by Darwin Cochran of Green Bay, Wisc., was travelingnorth on West 19th when it came to a stop at the Kansas City railroad crossing.

A small pickup driven by Chris Austin of Baton Rouge was traveling south on West 19th on its way to Highland Fabricators, where Austin works.

As Cochran and Austin came to a stop at the crossing, both reported seeing a black SUV pass Cochran on his left without stopping at the tracks.

Cochran then began to cross the tracks, but he did not see the train coming.

“He must have been distracted by the SUV,” said Austin.

The train smashed broadside into the trailer of Cochran’s rig, breaking the trailer into two pieces. One piece was flung at least 50 feet away fromthe main body of the truck; the other piece ended up parallel to the tracks and on top of the hood of Austin’s pickup.

“When I saw he was going to get hit, I tried backing up,” said Austin. “Whenhe got hit, the trailer came toward me. I didn’t get near far enough away.”The trailer, which was not carrying any cargo, also knocked over the brand-new signal pole on the north side of the tracks.

There are stop signs on each side of the crossing, plus Kansas City Railroad and St. John the Baptist Parish recently installed two electroniccrossing gates, but the gates are not functional yet. There are still plasticbags over the lights, and the red-and-white striped gates have not been put on the signal poles.

“I didn’t hear the train horn or see the train until I was hit,” claimed Cochran.

But Lt. Rick Hylander of the St. John Parish Sheriff’s Office, who was incharge of the investigation, said he talked to three witnesses who worked at BFI Industries some 200 feet away from the track, and they all said they heard the train horn long before it got to the crossing.

Cochran insisted he didn’t see anything.

“I never saw that train until it hit me,” repeated Cochran. “It was reallyfreaky.”Cochran, who has been driving for Schneider National Trucking Lines for five years, said he has never had an accident. Hylander gave Cochran acitation for failure to yield at a railroad crossing.

The train suffered no damage and was back on its journey about an hour after the accident.

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