Trucker Says He Didn't See Train

WASHINGTON (AP) - The truck driver involved in a deadly collision with an Amtrak train said his view of the oncoming locomotive was obscured and warning lights activated only after he was too far into the crossing to get out of the train's way.

"I was right on the crossing when I ... when it started flashing," John R. Stokes told a federal investigator the day after Amtrak's City of New Orleans slammed into his steel-laden tractor-trailer the night of March 15. "I didn't know what to do. Floor-board it, hit the brake, back up or what. So I just floored it."

Stokes, who was unhurt except for a scraped finger and some soreness, said he couldn't remember whether he ever heard the train's whistle. Despite his efforts to get the rest of the way

hrough the crossing, the train hit his truck, derailed, and smashed into rail cars loaded with steel that were sitting beside the tracks in Bourbonnais, Ill. Eleven passengers died, and 122 were injured.

"I was between a rock and a hard spot, let's put it that way," he said during another interview the night of the crash, with a representative from Illinois Central Railroad, which maintains the

ailroad tracks and crossing. "In fact ... I didn't even know the train was derailed. I just thought it was slowing down until I got out of the truck"

Stokes was questioned three times by officials looking into the accident. The National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency trying to determine what caused the crash, released transcripts of all of them this week.

Throughout all three, Stokes stuck to the same story. Stokes, 58, never expressed concern for those hurt and killed, volunteering only that he wished he had not been there.

When recounting the day of the accident, Stokes said he awoke about 12:30 a.m. for a run to Dayton, Ohio, dropping off his load about 7 a.m. By about 2:30 p.m. he was back in Manteno, Ill., where the company he works for is based. He said he went to his nearby home, made some dinner and did the dishes.

"(I) jacked around until about eight o'clock, went and got my truck, went back, went to Birmingham Bolt, loaded, come out of there, and run into a train," he said.

Stokes said his truck's front end was on the tracks, going about 20-25 mph, when the warning lights started flashing. He said the rail cars sitting next to the track had blocked his view of the oncoming train until he was on the track.

He could not recall whether the gates were down or coming down as he crossed.

"Once ya' see that light, I was just, my object was to get across the tracks," Stokes said.

He also said he had frequently seen Illinois Central employees working on the signal.

Stokes refused to testify at a public hearing the NTSB held in Chicago earlier this week to try to determine how the accident happened. He is the subject of a separate police investigation, but has not been charged with anything.

At the time of the accident, Stokes had accumulated three speeding convictions in 12 months. He lost his commercial trucker's license for two months this summer because of the violations but automatically regained it Aug. 1.

The NTSB's investigation is not expected to be completed until late next spring. Conflicting witness testimony and physical evidence have made it difficult to determine whether Stokes was trying to beat the oncoming locomotive or whether the crossing's warning system malfunctioned.