A trucker escaped injury Monday when the tractor-trailer he was driving was hit by a CSX freight train in south Fulton County, police said.
Fulton police spokesman Scott McBride told the AJC that the truck, which was hauling 49,000 pounds of glass, was struck just before 10 a.m. at a rail crossing along Roosevelt Highway at Buffington Road.
The truck driver “pulled up, thought he could get across the tracks, then saw the train coming and was in the process of trying to back back off the tracks when the train hit him,” Fulton fire Battalion Chief Wesley Stubbs said.
“Lucky for us, the train was coming off the siding track and was only going about 25 miles an hour, so it didn’t hurt the driver,” Stubbs said.
He said the train engine was pulling about 40 empty car carriers when it struck the truck.
The truck was headed to Strategic Materials, a nearby glass recycling factory, Stubbs said.
Police charged the truck driver, whose name was not immediately released, with failure to stop at a railroad crossing.
Haz-mat crews were sent to the scene to clean up diesel fuel that spilled from the truck's saddle tanks.
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