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I haven’t seen any overhead shots.. it was still gonna be a wreck if he tried to jackknifed it. just maybe not this bad..

empty gravel/bulk haulers would likely whip around if ya got the front end sliding around

sounds like no time to react. per article , he hit brakes at 320 feet out.. If he’s boogeying,,

Sfgate update today
a few more details..

6 killed in Amtrak train crash, 28 unaccounted for
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/26/MN9T1K2PVL.DTL&tsp=1

—snip —

Skid marks show the lead driver, who died in the crash and authorities have refused to identify, applied the brakes beginning at about 320 feet from the crossing but was unable to stop in time, officials said.

But more than a day after the rig, owned by John Davies Trucking of Battle Mountain, Nev., slammed into the train, little information was available about who was killed and who was missing in the collision.

—snip—

Mystifying. Still no information on the driver’s identity?

That’s not good and it does immediately make me suspect that there’s something they don’t want us to know. I think if it were just Mr. Average White Guy Trucker who nodded off at the wheel and woke up too late to do anything about it, we’d have heard that by now.

Looking at the photos, the place is an absolute flat-as-a-pancake stretch of land for many, many miles and the driver would certainly have seen the train coming. And while it’s possible to nod off at 11:00 a.m., normally most drivers, especially those with empty trailers going to pick up something, are in pretty good shape at that time of day.

My speculation is either that the truck was stolen and they actually can’t identify the driver (maybe it was the truck that was from “a small county in eastern Nevada,” as they said, and not the driver) or that there’s something inconvenient about him (namely, that he’s a foreign-born Muslim or a Muslim convert).

In that case, he might have tried to break because he was afraid he had miscalculated and would actually get across the tracks before the train arrived at that point.

In any case, please post if you find out anything more. It’s always possible that it was just a horrible accident, but they’re being so secretive about it that one wonders.