Wednesday afternoon in rural Linn County, Iowa, looked like a pretty ordinary day right up until a Honda Civic met a Canadian National freight train at a railroad crossing and lost. The collision, which happened just after 2 p.m. on Red School Road near Central City, left two people seriously injured and sent multiple emergency agencies scrambling to the scene. It was the kind of crash that serves as a blunt reminder of just how unforgiving rural railroad crossings can be.
The Linn County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the crash took place in the 5000 block of Red School Road, a stretch of road quiet enough that you might not expect anything to go wrong. But wrong is exactly what went. A 2004 blue Honda Civic, heading northbound, ran straight into a moving Canadian National train and then rolled into the ditch on the west side of the road. The scene that followed required the coordinated response of multiple agencies across the region.
Both the driver and the passenger in the Civic were transported to St. Luke’s Hospital by Center Point Ambulance with serious injuries. As of now, their identities and exact conditions have not been publicly released. The fact that both survived a direct collision between a small passenger car and a freight train is, frankly, remarkable, though “serious injuries” leaves plenty of room for concern…