Woman dies, man injured in Fort Worth train-car crash | Fort Worth Star-Telegram

A woman died and a man was critically injured in a train-car collision near downtown about 5 p.m. Tuesday.

A girl about 2 years old who was in the vehicle was taken to Cook Children's Medical Center with minor injuries, police said.

"There was glass all over that poor baby when they lifted her out," said Sarah Gonzales, 31, who was working at a nearby distribution company when the wreck occurred.

The vehicle, an older model Chrysler four-door, was stopped behind two or three other vehicles in the 300 block of Riverside Drive, said Fort Worth police Lt. Arthur Barclay. The vehicles were waiting behind the lowered crossing arms for the passenger train to pass, Barclay said.

Witnesses told police the driver of the Chrysler backed his car up and made a left turn onto Galvez Avenue, snaked around the lowered railroad crossing arms onto the tracks where the westbound train struck the passenger side of the car, police said.

The driver and the passengers in the vehicle had not been identified late Tuesday. Witnesses said the toddler was in the back seat of the car strapped into a child seat, police said.

"I didn't see it but I heard it and I immediately took off running because I knew what it was," said Mike Magallon, 44, a manager at American Glass Distributors, 404 Riverside Drive. "I had heard that sound before."

Last year on May 22, Magallon said he helped a woman out of a car that was struck by a Trinity Railway Express train at the same spot. She also went around the lowered gate at the railroad crossing at Riverside Drive and Galvez Avenue. Her injuries were not life-threatening.

The unidentified driver also made a left-hand turn onto Galvez from Riverside and went around the lowered gate. The train, heading west to the Intermodal Transportation Center, pushed the car off the track.

"If you're from this neighborhood, you know that this train goes pretty fast," Magallon said. "You just don't play with that one."

Buses transported the train passengers to their destinations, police said. People who normally ride the train route to and from locations in downtown Fort Worth and beyond, such as the Intermodal Transportation Center, the Richland Station and the end of the line at T&P Station, also took busses to their destinations, said Morgan Lyons, TRE spokesman.

It was unknown when the track would reopen.

This story contains material from the Star-Telegram archives.