It's over!
The truck driver has been tried --- and the answer was, Marijuana-addled stupidity on the part of the truck driver!
The doofus drove around the end of one signal gate, angled across the tracks, tried to go around the end of the other gate -- and almost made it -- except he came face-to-face with a big mailbox on a 4" steel post. Then he stopped, with the left rear corner of the rear trash loader bucket still extending out over one rail.
That corner of the loader bucket is what the train hit.
This photo pretty much tells the whole story:
The train hit the loader bucket, knocking it and the trash body off of the truck frame. They tumbled in the general direction the train was moving, wiped out the little railroad signal hut, and wound up with its top facing the camera.
Notice that the loader bucket was smashed up and right -- by impact with its left rear corner.
The chassis + cab of the truck was knocked forward over the mailbox post, and rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise. (You can see the arc of ruts where the wheels slewed around.)
There's lots more detail in that photo and others I have available -- but that's the story of the "Big Crozet, VA 'Conspiracy'" -- in a single frame.
No conspiracy -- just dope-addled stupidity...
I'll be back after an hour or so to "mop up" this mess...
TXnMA
