Police, railroad investigate collision

WASILLA — The Alaska Railroad, in conjunction with the Wasilla Police Department, is looking into how and why a man and his Cadillac wound up on the wrong end of a northbound freight train Dec. 14.

“A gentleman on Monday night around 9 o’clock either didn’t see or ignored the warning signals — the bar that came down and everything else — and went through the intersection,” railroad spokesman Tim Sullivan said.

Sullivan said the train had a load of cargo it was hauling north at the time and the crew reported blowing the train’s whistle as it went through the railroad’s intersection with Knik-Goose Bay Road.

“Our primary goal is safety and that intersection has bells, lights and an arm that comes down,” Sullivan said. “We don’t want anybody in the public getting hurt, we don’t want any of our crew or employees getting hurt.”

Sullivan said no one on the train was hurt and that the driver of the car reported he was also unhurt, but medics took him to the hospital to get checked.

Train-car collisions are exceedingly rare,” Sullivan said. The last one reported in the Valley was August 2009. The driver in that incident was killed.

“I’ve been on the job six months this is the only one I know of,” Sullivan said.