Truck Hit And Shifted Train Tracks, Causing Kansas Derailment, Authorities Say

The National Transportation Safety Board says an agricultural feed truck hit a train track near Dodge City, Kan., causing the rails to shift and an Amtrak train to derail shortly after midnight on Monday.

More than 30 people were sent to the hospital. The train, heading from Chicago to Los Angeles, was carrying 131 passengers and a crew of 14, Amtrak says.

As The Two-Way previously reported:

"From what a passenger tells local CBS TV station KWCH, the derailment seems to have started with cars at the rear of the train.

" 'We realized something was definitely was wrong after the shaking and we stopped. We got out and saw that four or five cars in the back, the coach cars, were on their sides,' Daniel Szczerba says.

"Szczerba also took photos and video from the crash site that he put on Twitter. Speaking to KWCH, he described the scene as emergency crews quickly arrived and people pushed out emergency window exits.

" 'A lot of people just looking for family members,' Szczerba says. 'Of course all the lights went out, it was dark. People traveling in groups in four or five got thrown around the car as it turned over and lost people as they were trying to get out of the emergency exits.' "