The Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles has ticketed the driver whose tractor-trailer was struck by an Amtrak train in Sharon Monday morning, the agency said.
Officials cited the driver — 62-year-old Michael Delaney of Leicester, Massachusetts — for attempting to cross the railroad tracks when it was unsafe to do so, according to a Tuesday press release from the DMV’s Enforcement and Safety Division.
Delaney was affiliated with the company Lajoie Brothers Transport of Charlton, Massachusetts, Vermont State Police have said.
According to the press release, the tractor-trailer was driving across the tracks at an unguarded rail crossing when the Amtrak Vermonter train collided with the truck’s trailer. The trailer, which was hauling stone from a nearby quarry, broke off from the truck upon impact, officials said, saving the vehicle from being dragged along the tracks.
Neither the truck driver nor the train’s 76 passengers and crew members were injured in the collision, officials have said. The incident disrupted service in both directions Monday on the Vermonter line, which runs between St. Albans and Washington, D.C.
Officials said the train was traveling 59 mph — which is 2 mph below the speed limit for that section of rail — at the time of the crash. The front end of the train was left badly damaged, according to a photo provided to VTDigger.
The train tracks at the scene of the crash were not damaged, officials said. Their investigation into the incident is still ongoing.
