Two passengers on Amtrak No. 73 headed from Raleigh to Charlotte, North Carolina were seriously injured when a semi-trailer carting a backhoe collided with the train this morning, May 13, 2010. The crash occurred in downtown Mebane, a small Alamance County town, shortly before 8:00 a.m.
The locomotive and three coach cars derailed and the engine and one of the cars erupted in flames. Fortunately, emergency crews extinguished the fire quickly, according to an article on myfox8.com.
The two most critically injured passengers were transported to Duke and UNC hospitals while seven other passengers who sustained minor injuries were taken to Alamance Regional Medical Center. There were 36 passengers on the train at the time of the accident.
Tracy Grayzer, Alamance Regional’s spokeswoman, described the seven passengers as having “cuts and bruises” in the same article on myfox8.com. No burn victims have yet been reported.
The train wreck occurred only a day after news-record.com reported that a study funded by the North Carolina Railroad Company finds great potential for the creation and use of a commuter rail that would run from Goldsboro to Greensboro.
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