A TRAIN crew says an unknown man in a pick up truck deserves credit for preventing what might have been serious trouble following an accident west of Terrace on Hwy16 the evening of Feb. 4.
Conductor Zane Hiebert says because of the pickup driver, his train was able to get a message to another train telling it to stop before encountering an accident scene in which a large chunk of ice damaged a Greyhound bus that night. At the accident point, the tracks and highway are very close.
Hiebert’s train was headed west toward Prince Rupert when a truck approached from the east on a stretch of highway also close to the tracks.
“We were headed into a siding so we were slowing down. As he came toward us he flashed his lights,” recalled Hiebert.
Train crew members rolled down their window so they could hear what the man had to say.
The crew then called their Edmonton dispatch centre and the centre then contacted an eastbound train which was within several miles of the Greyhound accident scene. That train was able to stop.
“I don’t know who that mysterious man was but he saved a lot of lives,” said Hiebert.
He and the other crew members say the pickup was a dark colour and think it could have been a Dodge. “And he had a canopy,” said Hiebert of the vehicle description.