An Amtrak train crashed into a truck at a road crossing in Illinois Friday, splitting the truck in half and leaving the train at a standstill.
Emergency services scrambled to the scene outside Wilmington, Illinois, around 4pm after the train hit the trailer, sending passengers inside the vehicle sprawling.
The train company said that the truck – reportedly laden with 35 tons of bacon – was ‘obstructing’ the crossing on a minor local road, which is protected by warning lights and barriers.
Ambulances were seen taking people from the scene, though Amtrak said there were no ‘serious injuries’.
The train is thought to have hit the back end of the truck, separating the tractor and its cargo, which were left on separate sides of the track.
Amy Leech Clendennen, a passenger on the train, said the impact was enough to knock other passengers over – but that many mistook it for an ‘abrupt stop’ rather than a crash.
She told DailyMail.com: ‘I was near the back – and so it was hard enough that it startled me and I slid forward in my seat – but I didn’t realize we had hit something.’
‘I saw some firemen helping people out of the train, and at least one person on a stretcher.’
‘I saw the driver get out of the truck – he was pacing around and seemed OK.’
An Amtrak spokesman told DailyMail.com: ‘The 22 en route to Chicago is delayed in Will County, Illinois, after it made contact with a tractor-trailer that was obstructing the tracks.’
The spokesman said 203 passengers and a full crew were on board at the time. Friday evening they were on buses to Chicago, though some passengers frustrated with waiting had made their own way on.
Amtrak said it expects to compensate passengers after the incident.
News footage from the local NBC5 news station showed scores of passengers pouring out of their carriages as the trailer lay parallel to the train, cargo spilling out onto the road.
The train was part of Amtrak’s Texas Eagle service, and was bound for Chicago’s Union Station.
The long-distance service, which started in San Antonio, Texas, had been due to arrive in Chicago at 1.52pm, but had already been delayed.
Its route runs from the heart of Texas, through Arkansas and Missouri, broadly in line with the Mississippi river, until its destination in Chicago.
Passengers were being taken to Chicago by bus Friday evening, as investigators checked the train and its tracks.
The collision comes less than a month after an Amtrak service catastrophically derailed near Philadelphia, killing eight people and injuring some 200.
Investigators later found that the train was going at more than 100mph around a bend when it came off the tracks with fatal results on May 12.