Amtrak Train Hits Truck in Missouri, With ‘Reports of Injuries’

An Amtrak train carrying 243 passengers crashed into a dump truck in Missouri on Monday, causing several cars to derail “with early reports of injuries,” the rail service said.

The train was traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago when it hit the truck at a public crossing at 1:42 p.m. in Mendon, Mo., about 100 miles northeast of Kansas City, Mo., Amtrak said.

Amtrak said that the local authorities were responding and that it had deployed its own resources to help. It said further details would be provided “as available.”

Calls and emails to the authorities in Chariton County, Mo., were not immediately returned.

Photos posted on Twitter by a man who said he was on the train showed passengers standing atop overturned Amtrak cars, helping each other out, as others walked along the side of the railroad tracks. Another photo showed four large rubber tires on an axle lying near the tracks.

The crash came after another Amtrak passenger train crashed into a four-door sedan at a crossing without a train signal or guardrails in a rural area of the East Bay in Northern California on Sunday, killing three people and critically injuring two others including a child, a spokesman for the local Fire Department and emergency services said.

The victims in that crash were pronounced dead at the scene, according to Steve Aubert, a fire marshal with the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District. That five-car train was carrying nearly 90 people, a spokeswoman for Amtrak said in an email.