Nearby: Cranberry Mother of Bus-Train Accident Passenger Shares Son’s Story

Cranberry resident Linda Farrell said it was a mother’s worst nightmare when she flipped on the television Friday.

On the screen were images of a train striking a Butler Area Rural Transit bus that was crossing the railroad tracks in Evans City. The bus was carrying close to a dozen elderly and mentally challenged people—including her son.

“As a mom that was hard,” she said. “Seeing and knowing it, it’s just a really hard thing.”

Farrell’s 25-year-old son Tim, who has special needs, was one of 11 people, including the driver, on the bus who were injured. The eight male and two female passengers on the bus ranged in age from 25 to 92.

Claudette Miller, 91, of Callery, was one of two critically injured people taken by medical helicopters to area hospitals.

She later died at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh from injuries to her head and body, according to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office.

Farrell said her son suffered bumps and bruises in the collision. He was treated and released Friday from Butler Memorial Hospital. Farrell noted her son, who has trouble speaking, was terrified by the incident.

“It just scared him to death,” she said. “He was a mess.”

Farrell said she was relieved her son was not more severely injured, but noted she spent most of the afternoon crying as she thought of the others affected by the accident.

“My heart goes out to everyone involved,” she said.

Farrell said one of Tim’s friends, a Cranberry resident who was on the bus, was taken to UPMC McCandless and also is expected to be OK.

(For an update on the all the passengers’ conditions, click here)

Evans City Police Chief Joe McCombs said the white BART mini-bus, which is part of a transportation program run by the Alliance For Nonprofit Resources in Butler, was heading east towards South Washington Street at about 8:15 a.m. when it stopped for an unknown reason on the tracks while the train was approaching.

The freight train blew its horn as a warning several before it struck the bus broadside, spinning it around, McCombs said. The impact lifted the bus

"From the engineer’s account, the bus was stopped directly on the crossing," McCombs said. "There was nothing he could do to avoid the collision.

(For a press conference with McCombs, click on the video in this article).

The Allegheny Valley Railroad train came to a stop about 100 yards from where it struck the bus, the chief said.

Evans City police officer Trina Loesch told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that bus driver Frank Schaffner, of Butler, said he did not see the train because of thick fog.

Schaffner was one of three people taken to Butler Memorial Hospital. Two of those people, including Farrell’s son were treated and released and the third was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

The Investigation

McCombs said Evans City Police have executed a search warrant to test Schaffner’s blood for drugs or alcohol as a standard procedure.

Authorities also plan to send data from the train's "black box" recorder to the Federal Railroad Administration for analysis, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

In addition, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and Federal Transit Administration are sending investigators to the scene.

Rob Kulat, a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration in Washington, D.C, told the Trib that the train was traveling at about 25 miles per hour at the time of the crash. The Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad owns the tracks.

Russell Peterson, a spokesman for the train company Carload Express, Inc., said the train was headed from Evans City to Pittsburgh, WPXI reports.

Fourteen of the 29 cars the engine was carrying were empty, he told the news station. The other cars were carrying general freight.

Crossing gates or warning lights do not guard the Maple Street intersection.

McCombs told the PG that Evans City owns Maple Avenue, but that the Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad determines where crossings and signals are placed.

The chief said it was foggy at the time of the crash. Authorities are investigating if weather was a factor in the accident. 

State police are reconstructing the accident. The Butler County District Attorney, TSA and The Department of Homeland Security also reported to the scene.

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