Man Killed When Train Hits Truck

A Deer Park, Wash., man died and a teenager was critically injured Friday morning after their pickup was struck by a freight train on the Rathdrum Prairie.

The accident was the second fatal car-train collision at the Beck Road railroad crossing in two months.

Tony Whicker, 20, and his passenger Nathaniel Early, 17, also of Deer Park, were heading south on Beck Road near Hauser Lake in a Ford Ranger pickup at 6:25 a.m. when they crossed the Burlington Northern Railroad tracks south of state Highway 53, according to the Idaho State Police.

The train engineer and conductor, the only witnesses, told authorities that the pickup did not speed up, as if to beat the train, slow, or stop at the crossing, said ISP Cpl. Jerry Oden, who investigated the accident.

“There’s no indication it stopped. There’s no indication of any skidding,” Oden said.

According to a Burlington Northern spokesman, the engineer followed the standard procedure of sounding a whistle as the train approached the crossing.

The crossing is marked with a warning sign, a stop sign and a railroad crossing sign.

“It’s wide open,” Oden said. “You can see either way.”

The speed of the pickup was approximately 15 miles per hour, while the train was traveling at 50 to 53 mph, Oden said.

The speed limit for the freight train, which was traveling from Whitefish, Mont., to Spokane, was 60 mph, Burlington Northern spokesman Gus Melonas said.

The train struck the pickup broadside, and it was catapulted off the tracks. Whicker died instantly, and Early suffered severe head and chest injuries, the ISP reported.

Early was airlifted to Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane, where he remained in critical condition late Friday afternoon.

On June 5, three people were killed at the same railroad crossing when a train struck their pickup truck.

The Federal Railroad Administration has no record of other fatalities prior to June 5 at that crossing.

The Beck Road crossing did have one injury accident in 1983, another in 1984 and a non-injury collision in 1990.

In fact, according to a listing kept by the Idaho Transportation Department, the Beck Road crossing does not even rank among the top 50 accident-prone railroad crossings in the state.

Yet, the four deaths this summer on Beck Road account for all the fatalities at Idaho railroad crossings this year, according to Chris Arvis, who coordinates Operation Lifesaver for Union Pacific Railroad in Idaho.

“This is another tragedy,” said ISP District Commander Ralph Powell Friday afternoon. “A kid. A handsome young lad. I’ve got his driver’s license in my hand. It’s really sad.”

But, Powell added, “with the tragedy in mind, I still have to say, with all condolences to the parents and family, that this shouldn’t have happened.”

“Everyone’s on this hype that we need to get better markings on this intersection. But it boils down to driver error.”

Burlington Northern is continuing an investigation of the accident, Melonas said.