Maybe you saw it on a newscast the other day – a commuter train slamming through a set of FedEx doubles at a railroad crossing in North Salt Lake, Utah.  Probably every TV newscast in America carried the police dash-cam footage of the event on Jan. 24. It was spectacular, showing that a couple of trailers are really soft targets when hit by massive train equipment – in this case passenger coaches being pushed by a locomotive, a common operation among commuter railways.

It was amazing that no one was killed or even injured. But there was plenty of embarrassment:

• to the Utah Transit Authority, whose warning lights and gates for the crossing didn’t work;

• to UTA workers sent to check on them after someone reported that they weren’t working, but the workers didn’t fix ‘em;

• to the truck driver, who failed to see the train coming;

• and to FedEx, which even now is probably explaining to a lot of shippers why their packages aren’t going to be delivered real soon, if at all.

As for blame, the stories on the ABC and NBC ‘casts focused on the non-working lights and gates, and reported the railroad’s preliminary finding that snow probably interfered with their operation. That’s possible, though they’re supposed to work in any weather.

Not to be harsh, but I blame the truck driver, who drove across the tracks into the train’s path. Remember, “Stop, look and listen”? When I approach a crossing, I always at least slow down, look up and down the tracks, and crack open a window so I can hear a rumble or a locomotive’s horn. I do this no matter what warning lights and gates are or aren’t doing. It just makes sense, as we saw from this accident.

Anyway, you can watch the event as shown on ABC World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News, from where I shot these pics.