Train 1, Truck 0

Obviously, from reports, the truck driver is at fault.

That being said, I just took a look at that crossing.   it *seems* to me to be a bad place for an unprotected RR Crossing.

The view I am posting is from the vantage point of the direction the truck was traveling.

Again, need to stop, look, listen, but various satellite pics I looked at shows a lot of traffic with a Posted Speed Limit of 50MPH.

Railroad crossings usually have a warning sign placed well in advance of the crossing.  If he was paying attention to the signs, he most likely would have known to be ready to check for a train.  It also looks to be a fairly wide open area, so it should have been pretty easy to see a train coming, especially if he had been looking out for it in the first place...  I'm no truck driver, but based on how we handle trains and locomotives at work, you should lean more towards the side of caution when driving something that big.

I had to look several times and I still don't recognize anything in that photo that looks like a rail road crossing. Is it possible in this modern age that they don't have at least a crossbuck with lamps? What kind of backwoods morons are running that state? Sheesh.

That is one, bad intersection. I see two old-looking wooden crossbucks with yield signs below. They need flashers for a crossing like that.

Is it a seldom-used spur, or industrial track?  

There are some like that around here, but they are very small dirt farm roads, generally privately-owned, and used to move tractors and farm equipment around. It's hard to believe that the track crosses a medium-sized highway, and at an intersection with another road, too, with that inadequate signage and no signals.

If that were in New Jersey, the way people drive here there would be an accident there every day.  I am a firm believer of paying attention, but that is just plain scary.

You'd think the RR would have to stop and manuslly flag a crossing like that but what do I know.  

News has since said Monroe, Ohio, across l-75 from Mason, O. which has Dixie Union Station, an OGR advertiser.  Mason, at the north and south ends, has a couple of sporty RR crossings, especially on the south end where a high traffic pair of four lanes right angle at stop lights WITH I-O tracks cutting diagonally across the intersection .  I was startled my first visit to pull up to the light and see an I-O diesel rolling through as l waited for a left turn.  On another visit to Dixie, on the north end a short train crossed what looks like a little used grade. Both are well guarded by lights, just possible surprises for the inattentive.

I am going to share an opinion that will probably be very unpopular:  If you hit or get hit by a train, it's your fault.

The train has to stay on its track:  it can't turn.  A train takes LONG time to stop.  A train is big and noisy and brightly lit.  If you don't see the train, you're not paying enough attention.  That's dumb when you're driving or walking.  If you see it and try to beat it, you're a Darwin Award nominee.

On foot or in a vehicle, you have much greater control over your direction and speed.  Too many people believe that, while driving, the whole world is obliged to get out of their way, make room for them to go wherever, whenever.  Other vehicles, pedestrians, trains, doesn't matter:  I am on my mission, and everybody is obliged to give way to me.  It's a form of tunnel vision, augmented by booming stereos, cell phones, and or engrossing conversations with the others in the vehicle or walking group.

I've seen near-accidents, people blocking the way of emergency vehicles . . . .  It's all a variation of the famous cranial-rectal inversion, and it's deadly to self and others.  The answer is removing the cranium from the rectum and paying attention.

News has since said Monroe, Ohio, across l-75 from Mason, O. which has Dixie Union Station, an OGR advertiser.  Mason, at the north and south ends, has a couple of sporty RR crossings, especially on the south end where a high traffic pair of four lanes right angle at stop lights WITH I-O tracks cutting diagonally across the i wentersection .  I was startled my first visit to pull up to the light and see an I-O diesel rolling through as l waited for a left turn.  On another visit to Dixie, on the north end a short train crossed what looks like a little used grade. Both are well guarded by lights, just possible surprises for the inattentive.

  What? There is a big X in the lane. You don't need signs anymore silly. Can't you see it's on the road so it can be seen swell ...Until the paint wears, there is heavy traffic, or the weather hides it. Thank a penny counting brainstorm from a politician with a chaufer and a police escort for messes like that, lol.