NORTH BERWICK – June Adams was waiting, a few cars back from the railroad crossing on Route 4, when the Amtrak Downeaster slammed into a trash truck Monday morning, igniting a fireball that filled the sky and enveloped the passenger train.
“The train was going down the track and it was engulfed in flames. It was like one of those action movies,” said Adams, a Kennebunk resident. “I was trying to dial 911, but my hand was shaking so hard I couldn’t.”
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The Downeaster, which typically runs at 60 mph through North Berwick, was carrying 112 passengers and three crew members north when it hit the trash-hauling tractor-trailer at 11:05 a.m., killing the driver.
Peter Barnum, 35, of Farmington, N.H., was driving for Triumvirate Environmental Inc. of Massachusetts, headed to the Maine Energy incinerator in Biddeford, authorities said.
Witnesses said the truck’s brakes locked and it skidded 75 yards before crashing through the railroad crossing gate and into the path of the train.
None of the train’s passengers was seriously hurt; four passengers and two crew members were treated for minor injuries, Downeaster officials said.
A spokeswoman for Goodall Hospital in nearby Sanford said three crash victims were treated there, two for smoke inhalation and one for a head injury. All three were released by early afternoon.
Justin Nelson, 24, of Los Angeles was riding on the Downeaster with his wife as part of a cross-country rail tour. “We were just sitting there, running along, when all of a sudden the train started violently shaking,” Nelson said. “Then there was fire all around us. There was lots of screaming.”
The train came to a stop a quarter-mile past the crossing, with the front passenger car scorched and partially derailed. The three passenger cars behind it appeared undamaged, as did the cab car at the end of the train.
After the crash, the train’s engineer jumped out of the locomotive and manually unhooked the front car, which was burning out of control, according to a firefighter at the scene. The engine rolled about 1,000 feet down the track from the rest of the train, though it was not immediately clear how.
“I’m not sure if it was the result of a conscious decision by the engineer or if the engine just broke loose,” said Patricia Quinn, executive director of the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority, which operates the Downeaster service.
Quinn said the engineer, the only person in the engine, described seeing flames shooting up and over the windshield of the cab and along the sides.
He had to escape quickly through the back of the engine, but Quinn didn’t know exactly how he got out. She said she hadn’t had a chance to speak with the engineer, whom she declined to identify.
He was taken to a hospital to be checked out.
“The reports I’m getting is that he is OK. A bit shaken up, but OK,” Quinn said.
North Berwick Deputy Fire Chief Larry Straffin, who oversaw firefighting at the crash scene, said he believed the engineer’s quick thinking kept the fire from spreading.
“Stopping it, getting (the engine) separated, getting the people off, he did a real good job,” Straffin said.
All-terrain vehicles were used to get the injured passengers from the train to waiting ambulances. Uninjured passengers waited in a wooded area nearby for school buses to take them to Portland. Some spoke on cellphones, contacting friends and families to report they were safe.
At the scene of the collision on Route 4, heaps of trash covered the gravel alongside the tracks for several hundred feet. The trailer had tumbled off the road and the truck had disintegrated, with large pieces strewn along both sides of the tracks.
The driver’s body was found, badly burned, 30 feet from the tracks and about 200 feet from the collision.
The engine was heavily burned, with chunks of metal missing from the front. The first passenger car was cloaked with soot from the fire, and emergency exit windows lay on the ground where they had landed.
The engine and at least one passenger car were still smoldering more than an hour after the crash, eyewitnesses said.
A scorching sun made it hot work for firefighters from several towns, who took turns dousing the flames.
The Downeaster had left Boston at 9:05 a.m. and was due to arrive in Portland at 11:35 a.m. The crash happened about 40 miles south of Portland, in this rural York County town of 4,300 people.
The speed limit for that section of Route 4, also known as Elm Street, is 30 mph, though residents of the neighborhood say cars and trucks routinely speed through it.
David Davis said he saw the crash from his driveway as he unloaded groceries. He saw the blue truck coming north on Route 4 toward the intersection, heard the crossing gates closing and heard the train sound its whistle.
“The truck’s tires were locked right up and there was smoke coming out from underneath,” Davis said. “I saw the truck just sliding through the gate. The next thing I saw was a big ball of fire.”
More than 75 yards of skid marks on northbound Route 4 showed the driver’s unsuccessful attempt to stop for the train. There is a slight downgrade to the road there.
“There’s not much warning,” Davis said. “The gate comes down, and the train’s right there.”
Officials found the crossing gate — a long wooden arm with flashing red lights atop it — broken and in the weeds off to the side of the crossing.
Maine State Police were assisting the investigation and should be able to calculate the truck driver’s speed based on skid marks and some truck electronics that were recovered, said spokesman Steve McCausland. He said the truck had passed an inspection by New Hampshire State Police in May without any problems.
Tom Gorski, who works in a building 50 yards from the intersection, said he heard the approaching locomotive, then a boom that shook the building. He said he ran to the scene.
“It looked like somebody dropped a bomb,” he said. “The flames were shooting higher than a three-story house. It brings tears to your eyes.”
Mollie Gandy, who was in her apartment right next to the intersection, said the crash made a terrifying sound. “You felt it in your chest,” she said.
Rob Conley, whose apartment is right along the tracks, discovered the driver’s body and helped a firefighter cover it with a tarp.
“That startled me, and for me to freeze, it’s got to be something major,” said Conley, who has been to Iraq multiple times with the Army’s 101st Airborne Division. “The only way I can compare it, it was like a bomb going off.”
Monday afternoon, a Pan Am Railways locomotive was preparing to pull the damaged train north to clear the tracks.
The Downeaster was expected to resume service from Boston on Monday night, with a train scheduled to leave Boston for Portland at 11:20 p.m.
Quinn said she doesn’t expect any deviations from this morning’s scheduled departures from Portland. Trains will leave for Boston at 5:45 and 8 a.m.
– Staff Writer Dennis Hoey contributed to this report.
Staff Writer Jason Singer can be contacted at 791-6437 or at: jsinger@pressherald.com
Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at: dhench@pressherald.com
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