Here's what happened - the driver neglected the old "Stop, look and listen" adage.

What is up with all the stupid comments? I come to NBCnews to read intelligent comments. I'd go to 4chan or redditt if i wanted to read trash.

For the idiot who broadcasted Allah's will.... Let us not forget Muhammad was a 50 year

old man who married and had sex with a 9 yr old girl (google Islam and Muhammad)... Muhammad died a

pedafile...

who? me, you're in the same category as Abu Bob. You could have simply ignored his post.

Don't park on RR tracks!

who? me, you do know that christians used to marry 13 year olds and even younger right? in ancient rome 12 to 14 year olds married. in medieval europe after the first menstruation girls were married and had babies and even at the age of 7 were betrothed to be married upon that first menstruation.

from wiki

The American colonies followed the English tradition, and the law was more of a guide. For example, Mary Hathaway (Virginia, 1689) was only 9 when she was married to William Williams. Sir Edward Coke (England, 17th century) made it clear that "the marriage of girls under 12 was normal"

also, thanks for proving hooked on phonics doesn't work. the word is pedophile.

who? me

For the idiot who broadcasted Allah's will.... Let us not forget Muhammad was a 50 year

old man who married and had sex with a 9 yr old girl (google Islam and Muhammad)... Muhammad died a

pedafile...

And many of you just voted for the follower of a 19th Century pedophile. Just sayin'!

The Koran is just as valid as The Bible, and the Bible as The Book of Mormon, which is as valid as The Torah and etc., etc., in that none of this dogma has any validity. Man made dogma to manipulate the masses.

I wouldn't even begin to try to explain this incident from a religious view other than to believers it is God's perverted will.

@Earl, wrong website, try Fox News. Your racism may be welcomed there.

@SpcTorres, KUDOS for your @Earl.

Earl, you have no basis for suggesting that an illegal was driving the truck. Take your bigotry elsewhere.

The moron who planned a parade route across live rr tracks should be thrown in jail!

The focus should be caring for the ones that have just lost a loved one.

I grew up in West Texas and have been to Midland many times. It's in the middle of flat-land-nowhere, one set of railroad tracks through the city, and it is inconceivable that the driver didn't see the warning lights/barriers or know the train was approaching. What moron tries to beat a train at a crossing while driving a semi at parade speed? Who plans a parade route across active train tracks? Who loads wounded vets and their families onto a semi-tractor trailer under these circumstances? "Stupid" was active at so many levels in this mess that tragedy was practically inevitable. In fact, "stunningly stupid" comes to mind.

AGDOC

You're right. I don't understand why they did all that either. I am from Midland and it makes NO sense what-so-EVER!. The driver no doubt is a MESS right now. I am so sorry.

Agreed. I cannot understand how this accident occurred. We have lots of trains here in KY and they are LOUD!!! The people on the float were outside, probably facing to either side of the float. How were those people unable to get off the float before the train hit? Why would someone drive a parade float across the tracks when a train was obviously coming? And what dipwad would plan a parade across live railroad tracks? Inconceivable!!!

Long parade. Front of parade reaches end. Entire parade stops while sorting it out. Dumb@ss driving semi/float stops on tracks. Parade doesn't move. Train appraoches. Semi/float trapped on tracks behind other vehicles. Gates come down on top of semi/float. Train cannot stop in time. Cars stopped on tracks for traffic or traffic lights, seen it hundreds of times. Even seen cars hit by the gates when they come down because cars are right under them.

Devil's Son,

Your comment gives a good explaination as to how this accident could occur.

My heart goes out to the families that lost loved ones and for a quick recovery for the injured.

I certainly understand the tragedy and my heart is with their family's but, what kind of moron runs a parade route across railroad tracks?

Can anybody say stupid?

As I read it, the parade route did not go across the railroad tracks... They were on their way to a banquet. Floats have to get to and from the parade somehow... they're not just airdropped in...

It really was driver error, however... People cross railroad tracks without making sure there is room for them on the other side... then they stop on the tracks while they wait for traffic to move up. It's stupidity and impatience.

I live in Midland Texas and this is what we are being told the street where it happen has a stop signal tracks then another signal maybe 1/2 block between stop signals, the truck and float got caught on the tracks, the railroad signals were coming down and the truck had no where to go. The men and women were trying to jump off. They were disabled and I am sure those that jumped off got hurt from debris!!! It is a SAD horribl;e accident and what we need to do is PRAY NOT put blame on anyone or anything!

thanks so much for the information, Christie. i wondered if it could have been something like that. excellent advice from you, as well.

The truck (carrying soldiers) stopped on the tracks because the semi in front of it stopped ..... when the truck realized the train was coming he started blowing his horn for the semi in front of him to get going so he could get off the tracks ..... the arms DID come down ..... on the trailer full of people then they went back up after they made contact ..... the train was way too close to stop in time .....

i'm so sorry. can't imagine the horror of this. almost too macabre to be believed. thanks again, Christie.

The driver of the flatbed with veterans on board should never, never, have entered the RR crossing unless he could get all the way across, if that is what happened. Drivers Ed 101.

I was not there, I do not have first hand knowledge of what took place. My comment is based on the seemingly reasonable comment of Christie L.

EWO is right - DON'T get on the track if you don't KNOW you can get through. I got stuck on RR one time when the gate started coming down (stupid me) and was going to back up but then the car in front pulled ahead. There could have been vehicles behind the truck too. Tragedy.

Very careless parade route - parade vehicles are usually close together, so when the front is forced to stop, everything behind it stalls in place. If one of them is on a grade crossing - terrible blunder.

They probably should have placed a flagger/policeman/etc. at the crossing, assigned to stop each unit until there is obviously enough clearance beyond the crossing to allow the long units to cross straight through without stopping. It would have provided some backup for the driver's procedures and judgement.

Christie L.--

You (or someone else from Midland) posted elsewhere in this thread about a police officer stationed behind the crossing who seemed to be moving/directing parade traffic through the nearby lighted intersection. Another poster mentioned that the person(s) responsible for this must be important and well-loved, because so far very little information has been released.

What's the possibility that a police officer WAVED the truck/trailer driver onto the tracks? As other posters have mentioned elsewhere, the crossing was designed such that you were *literally* trapped in the crossing once the guard arms came down. Once the oncoming train tripped the signal, the truck carrying our nation's heroes was trapped with nowhere to go.

If a police officer were responsible for waving those veterans into harm's way, that would go a long way towards explaining why there's so little information out there so far.

Just a hunch...

Tragic. My question is - when will very intelligent (or not) media people learn to not ask "how is the family holding up" the day after a tragedy? The question itself indicates the person asking it has no clue to the extent of the pain ... what possible answer can be given? Are we just trying to comfort ourselves - that they are doing fine ... so we can move on in our emotion to the next event?

This is the most tragic event to happen in our area in a long time. If you have nothing productive to add to the conversation, then please keep it and all political crap to yourself.

I do not know how many injured are veterans, family or others. Ten people have been released from the hospital. One person was airlifted to another hospital. The remaining people are still at Midland Memorial Hospital. Four people have passed of which, two were veterans. Local people should call to see about donating blood.

Christie L, Thank you for your input on this tragedy. My prayers go to all of those involved and their families. May God bless us all at this time.

The crossing signals were working at the time of the accident. The engineer sounded the horn as he was approaching.

If I feel like I want to exercise my freedom to spew "any" kind of crap it would be my right. Its tragic yes, but obviously somebody was thoroughly stupid. I am guessing that stupidity is shared. One more example of the mistreatment of veterans. If they were cattle I am sure the outcry against the driver(s), police, and/or city managers would be extreme. Is Texas still seceding from the Union?

THat depends Jason. If Texas does secede do you promise not to join them?

In that case, I vote "Aye"!

I appreciate the additional information about the accident. Otherwise the crash really made no sense at all. I had once pulled past a RR crossing up to a red light and a car pulled behind me onto the tracks (which I knew was not very bright of them) when we heard a train horn and the signal began flashing. We were jammed in with traffic on both sides, and I had nowhere to go; but that car rammed right into me to get off the tracks! I still don't think she made it all the way off, but I think the train was actually in the station and delayed leaving for a few minutes until the crossing fully cleared. Where I live in FL people are so impatient with red lights they stop on the tracks all the time.

This was a terribly tragic situation that looks like it could have been avoided, though I feel certain that whoever made the decision for the truck to go onto the tracks is suffering terribly over that decision and will suffer over it for the rest of their life. As one person has commented, it is probably best at this point just to pray for all who were involved (if you happen to pray) rather than getting too caught up in blame. No doubt plenty of blame will come later. However, I think we can be certain that no one chose for this to happen.

There are two lead to this story one says the trailer was on it's way to the parade and the other says it was in the parade??

There is a way to do this start a fund for them that way we can all donate from our hearts not our pocket books. If you do it any other as like government funded then there will have to be a staff lead by an appointed overseer whom will have to have a secretary. Just start a fund.

There was no such bill, if so, prove it.

knuckledragger: Please provide the bill you are blogging about. I don't show a record of a bill as you've described being voted down.

To those looking for the veterans' jobs bill that the *Republicans* refused to pass, here you go:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/veterans-jobs-bill-blocked-in-the-senate/

We almost needed to save all the tax money possible to pay for more high end tax cuts... Providing for our disabled vets should be high priority - no matter who called the war or for what reason, they served for our country.

REX the bill was

S.3457 Veterans Jobs Corps Act of 2012 block September 19, 2012.

The government has proven time and again that it is not capable of producing jobs for anyone including veterans. Yes the bill was blocked by Republicans because the Republicans knew that if this bill were to pass then it would be just more of the same ole same ole careless spending of this frivilous administration. First of all, the money just simply isn't there. Why are we trying to pass bills using money we don't even have in the first place? We can't spend money that isn't there. We just can't! Second of all, show me a jobs program that has actually created jobs and was worth the money it spent in the first place. You can't. You can't spend money you don't have and you can't create jobs from the government. They only way that jobs can be created is if a need for production is created and that's not going to happen either as long as the government keeps trying to bleed the business owners dry. Just sayin.

Oh and I live in Midland where this happened. Very sad for the victims, families, witnesses (remember this was a parade so a lot of people witnessed this tragedy) and for the train conducters. Our town is in mourning right now. The vehicle was trapped on the tracks with nowhere to go. I guess they just didn't think that a train would be coming through their parade route. But blaming isn't going to solve anything.

@Snideygirl, I bet you have good reasons why Republicans block everything that they do. They'll spend more money on the military and wars, but refuse to spend the money on the soldiers that they can no longer use. If it is "Careless spending" as you call it, at least it's for a good cause. If it didn't work, at least it was tried. Or should we just continue to cut taxes for the rich, cause that's never failed to create jobs. (/sarcasm)

SpcTorres

@Snideygirl, I bet you have good reasons why Republicans block everything that they do. They'll spend more money on the military and wars, but refuse to spend the money on the soldiers that they can no longer use. If it is "Careless spending" as you call it, at least it's for a good cause.

S.3457 was blocked and good that it was. I'm a Tricare for Life participant and the copay increases as part of this bill would have been too much of a burden on myself and my family. It is hard enough finding participating doctors who take tricare as it is, it's easier finding a medicare doctor even in large cities of a million or more. Also, it was the Pentagon who wanted the rate increases to curtail the rising costs to tricare to get their budget down to what the White House wants to cut from the military budget.

Yeah, true it is also a jobs bill for veterans but nearly every jobs bill, military of not, introduced has done nothing but produced an increase in deficit spent, not produced many jobs or just seen the monies assigned disappear to that great black hole where money disappears with no end result.

I spent 26 years serving, am severely disabled from my service and can barely scrape by on the medical costs I have now. Yes I have VA disability benefits too but VA hospitals are few and far between and even if I lived near a VA hospital the waiting lists to get much needed care are horribly long. Using civilian doctors is the only course of action for most vets and their families and, as I said, finding Doctors who accept Tricare, even though it is Humana administered, is virtually impossible.

Actually, several companies out there prefer hiring veterans. Send me an email and I will respond with the names of the companies. They are major oil field companies. However, I believe this set of talks would be better off on a different board than on an article about a local tragedy.

Thank you for being the only voice of reason in this string of ignorant posts. My first reaction was "you plan a parade route over an active train track?" It's very sad someone didn't plan this as you said.

The first thing I thought when I read the article was, did they not notify anyone they were having a parade? BC I'm sure a train would not be barreling through if the correct people had been notified. Thank you, I knew there had to be something they should have done beforehand. Maybe this isn't a very large organization so they aren't aware of all these things- how sad that there was nothing set up for this beforehand!

If the first truck stopped after the tracks,then the second truck should have stopped BEFORE THE TRACKS. NOT ON THE TRACKS!! That's the NORMAL thing to do!!

Thank you for your post. My father was a locomotive engineer and has had the sad experience of people dying after being struck by the engine he was running. These events affected him profoundly.

I have been in law enforcement over 24 years. There unfortunately have been situations where someone is stranded on the tracks. We have always had great success in notifying the railways and stopping trains. I was not there and do not know what planning had taken place, but hopefully organizers learn from this tragedy and notify the railyards that might cross the parade route ahead of time to prevent something like this from happening again. I am not about to blame the people who pulled up onto the track because I have no idea if they were under the assumption that the trains had been stopped to allow the parade through. Sadly someone dropped the ball and even though blame will be laid, it will do nothing to bring back the dead. My prayers go out to the injured, killed, train crew, and this town as a whole

I can't imagine what this train crew must be going through. My husband is a railroad engineer and I know how hard these accidents are for these guys. This one is going to be even harder I think. Prayers for those guys, this is something they will need to live with forever.

Thank you for presenting the railroad engineer's perspective. I was not blaming the railroad anyway because it's simple physics to understand that no one could stop a heavy train moving at full speed quickly enough to avoid hitting something on the tracks like that. We grieve for those who were involved in this incident.

Nothing says the train was "going like Billy Hell". With their mass and power a train can be moving at a persons running or even walking pace and destroy any vehicle on the road.

The speed limit was raised from 40 to 60 miles 2 years ago in Midland, Texas! Hillybilly town I doubt We have the 3rd lowest unemployment rate in the WHOLE country!!!

If no one contacted the RR, then they would have no clue that a parade was taking place.

Hillbilly town? That's a first. We're actually a town of a little over a hundred thousand and yes our unemployment rate is very low. In fact, it's so low that restaurants can't keep servers and walmart can't keep cashiers (at $14.00 an hour) because the other opportunities here are so much better. We have country clubs, museums, libraries, volunteer organizations, socialites, rich people, poor people, welfare offices, parks, gated communities, a bad part of town (a couple of them actually), prostitutes, drug dealers, crackhouses, mansions, cultured people, hillbillies and a few ignorant people quite like Abu Rob who has never been to Midland and thinks he knows us better than we do. We have a little bit of everything and nobody ever claimed that we were a gem of the United States however I'm kind of partial to this place.

Snideygirl, you must try to remember not to feed the trolls. It just encourages them to spew more crap.

I saw that too. It looks like it got corrected after your comment posted, and while I was torn between shock over the horror of the deaths and the shock over that the lack of editors and proof-reading is so common at NBC.

Elk, in this age of 24/7 instant news demands by the reading public, NBC is not the only guilty media. There are typo errors and grammar errors in almost every story posted on almost every available website (and not just the news media sites.) Don't even get me started on the people who sit here typing comments and don't use the spell-check mode to catch their spelling errors. Oops, wait, spell-check doesn't catch correct spelling but mis-use, such as the mistaken use of their, there, and they're and all such similar mis-uses that are used in every single thread here on Newsvine and elsewhere...often by the very people complaining about the typos in the original articles. Writers are under so much pressure these days to get their stories posted that NO ONE takes time to proof what they have written before hitting the "submit" button and there is no such thing as "proof editors" for internet postings, by any of the media services from AP on down to the print, broadcast, and internet media. I know, since I used to work for two local newspapers, plus was the owner/publisher/editor/writer/graphic artist of my own monthly publication for 44 months back in 2004-2008.

Since you didn't read the story or look at the picture, the crossing had gates and lights.

Jane123-1429056, you are an idiot,and moron for commenting as you did

My prayers to the families of the victims, and to the crew members on the train

There are stupid people everywhere. Not just in Texas.

No, I think that they were speaking logistically. The train, regardless of fault, did hit the truck, not the other way around.

Further up, though, someone in Midland said that the truck was between the stop gates when they went down and had nowhere to go.

the truck (carrying veterans) stopped on the tracks because the semi in front of it stopped ..... when the truck realized the train was coming he started blowing his horn for the semi in front of him to get going so he could get off the tracks ..... the arms DID come down ..... on the trailer full of people then they went back up after they made contact ..... the train was way too close to stop in time .....

Drive error, pure and simple. A little common sense would have prevented this accident. The problem is you cannot teach people common sense. You are either born with it or learn it on your own.

In this case, the driver did not have that capacity.

Regardless, you don't stop on train tracks.

I know I'm asking for it, but I've seen people here in FL stop on the tracks all the time simply because they are so impatient when there is a red light they don't want to stop all the way back behind the tracks. It might delay them 2 whole milliseconds when the light turns green! I'm always telling people that the traffic rules here must be "merely guidelines." (BTW, I haven't seen a single redneck here-and, trust me, I would know since I grew up in Mississippi-I live in a county that is blue, blue, blue as the sky, excuse the politics. I only included politics to show that they have NOTHING to do with this, based on the name of the OP.)

What does a political party have to do with planning a train schedule, speed, and a parade?

If the railroad is operating freights at 60 mph in a suburban or urban setting it is too fast.

Nevertheless as a driver you should not start crossing the RR grade crossing unless you see room on the other side to clear the track of your vehicle length. It sounds like the gates didn't come down until the truck was on the track.

Agreed. It's ridiculous. How can we possibly help the country with all of this nastiness? Why not just work together, what a concept?