{"id":11506,"date":"2011-06-26T11:45:16","date_gmt":"2011-06-26T11:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/utu.org\/?p=11506"},"modified":"2022-06-10T16:24:48","modified_gmt":"2022-06-10T20:24:48","slug":"utu-member-dead-in-nevada-amtrak-truck-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/utu-member-dead-in-nevada-amtrak-truck-crash\/","title":{"rendered":"UTU member dead in Nevada Amtrak-truck crash","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FALLON, Nev. \u2013 An Amtrak conductor was killed and an assistant conductor seriously injured here\u00a0June 24 when a tractor-trailer combination rammed the side of a double-deck passenger car of Amtrak\u2019s westbound California Zephyr in a fiery crash at a highway-rail grade crossing. The crash site is some 70 miles east of Reno.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/conductor_laurette_lee.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11579 \" style=\"border: 1px solid black;margin: 6px 12px 6px 12px\" title=\"LAURETTE LEE\" src=\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/conductor_laurette_lee.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"113\" height=\"144\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-dd\"><strong><em>Lee<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Killed was conductor and UTU Local 166 member Laurette Lee, age 68, of South Lake Tahoe, Calif.\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Injured &#8212; a broken right arm and\u00a0severed finger &#8212;\u00a0was assistant conductor and UTU Local 166 member Richard d\u2019Alessandro, age 49, of Elk Grove, Calif.<br \/>\nThe truck driver also was killed, and news agencies are reporting\u00a0at least\u00a0four others dead, with scores injured &#8212;\u00a0many having been\u00a0trapped inside two burning passenger cars. The Nevada Highway Patrol said that because of the extent of the fire and damage to the passenger cars, the search for bodies continued into\u00a0late Saturday.<br \/>\nAmtrak said some 204 passenger names were on the manifest, with\u00a014 crew members\u00a0aboard the train, which was utilizing Union Pacific track. The train was enroute from Chicago to Emeryville, Calif.<br \/>\nLee, a mother of three, was from a railroad family. Her grandfather and great-grandfather were rails, her brother is an Amtrak dispatcher and her nephew, Ben Rankin, is an Amtrak conductor and member of UTU Local 1732 (San Jose, Calif.). A family member told the <em>Contra Costa <\/em>(Calif.) <em>Times<\/em> newspaper that Lee began her railroad career in 1988 as a baggage handler and later was promoted to conductor.<br \/>\nNews reports say the U.S. 95 crossing at Fallon\u00a0is equipped with warning bells, lights and gates. A National Transportation Safety Board spokesperson said an outward facing camera in the Amtrak locomotive recorded that the signals and gates were working. The NSTB\u00a0spokesperson\u00a0called the crossing safety devices, &#8220;state of the art&#8221; and said the signals should have been visible to the truck driver a half-mile from the crossing.<br \/>\nThe NTSB, with assistance from the UTU Transportation Safety Team, is investigating the accident along with the Federal Railroad Administration.<br \/>\n&#8220;This is just a confirmation that the only safe grade crossing is a grade crossing that has been separated or closed,&#8221; said UTU National Legislative Director James Stem.\u00a0&#8220;Until we adopt the Interstate highway values of no grade crossings, these accidents will continue.&#8221;<br \/>\nHeroic acts in saving passenger lives by\u00a0UTU-member conductors\u00a0\u00a0&#8212; one off duty and riding the train &#8212; have been told to NTSB investigators and will be reported at www.utu.org as the facts are developed.<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FALLON, Nev. \u2013 An Amtrak conductor was killed and an assistant conductor seriously injured here\u00a0June 24 when a tractor-trailer combination rammed the side of a double-deck passenger car of Amtrak\u2019s westbound California Zephyr in a fiery crash at a highway-rail grade crossing. The crash site is some 70 miles east of Reno. Lee Killed was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31,45,644,18],"tags":[1135,1136,1137],"member_types":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>UTU member dead in Nevada Amtrak-truck crash - SMART Union<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/utu-member-dead-in-nevada-amtrak-truck-crash\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UTU member dead in Nevada Amtrak-truck crash - SMART Union\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"FALLON, Nev. \u2013 An Amtrak conductor was killed and an assistant conductor seriously injured here\u00a0June 24 when a tractor-trailer combination rammed the side of a double-deck passenger car of Amtrak\u2019s westbound California Zephyr in a fiery crash at a highway-rail grade crossing. The crash site is some 70 miles east of Reno. Lee Killed was [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/utu-member-dead-in-nevada-amtrak-truck-crash\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SMART Union\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-26T11:45:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-06-10T20:24:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/conductor_laurette_lee.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"paul\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"paul\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/utu-member-dead-in-nevada-amtrak-truck-crash\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/utu-member-dead-in-nevada-amtrak-truck-crash\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"paul\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/#\/schema\/person\/3bf284ac953ca998cc3f03167a72c88f\"},\"headline\":\"UTU member dead in Nevada Amtrak-truck crash\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-06-26T11:45:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-06-10T20:24:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/utu-member-dead-in-nevada-amtrak-truck-crash\/\"},\"wordCount\":420,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/utu-member-dead-in-nevada-amtrak-truck-crash\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/conductor_laurette_lee.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Amtrak. 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