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Amtrak suing truck company involved in Maine crash
Amtrak has filed a lawsuit against the company that owned the truck one of its trains collided with last month in Maine, the agency confirmed to The Hill Wednesday.
On July 11, train number 681 on Amtrak's Downeaster service hit a truck just after 11 a.m. about five miles from the New Hampshire border. The driver of the truck, Farmington, N.H., resident Peter Barnum, was killed in the accident.
The New Hampshire Union-Ledger reported Wednesday that the Amtrak suit against the Somerville, Mass., company that employed the driver, Triumvirate Environmental, alleges the deceased driver of the truck ignored warnings the train was approaching the intersection where the accident occurred.
“Barnum operated the tractor-trailer combination around the lowered crossing gates, despite the flashing lights, the audible warnings and the sounding of a horn from an approaching Amtrak train,” the newspaper reported the Amtrak lawsuit says.
The company is responsible because it “negligently hired Barnum and negligently entrusted the vehicle to Barnum, who it knew or should have known was unqualified to operate the Kenworth tractor-trailer combination,” the Amtrak suit argues.
At the time of the accident, Amtrak said none of the 109 passengers who were on board the train were injured, though service on the Downeaster route, which runs from Boston to Portland, Maine, was disrupted.
— Originally posted at 1:22 p.m. and updated at 2:07 p.m.
