Texas Student Killed when Bus Struck by Train

[GoldenRivet]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/athens-...ay-2019-01-25/

A small, county road winds its way through a wooded area about a mile and a half south of my driveway. its the shortest route between my home and the grocery store, and any number of restaurants or shops, and i travel it often. As roads go, its nothing much to write home about. The traffic flow is light, the un-striped road is narrow and filled with years of potholes and cracks. Its a peaceful drive, especially in the summer as the dense canopy of trees grows in allowing small shafts of sunlight to peer down onto the asphalt below. There are a few houses tucked away in the trees, and there is a recently rejuvenated cemetery from the 1830s containing the graves of a man and woman, their children and their unknown slaves.

The name of the road is "Cream level road". While now, its domain is but 1.3 miles of East Texas woodland, up until the 1930s it used to be a thoroughfare connecting nearby markets to the now extinct farming community of Cream Level, Texas some 13 miles distant.

At the Apex of Cream Level Road, sits a simple railroad crossing for a track that runs countless miles from one end of the nation to the other as so many tracks do.

Yesterday, just after 4pm, for reasons known only to God, countless lives had an appointment with destiny at the tiny railroad crossing, at the top of a hill, of this little, ordinary, uninteresting street.

As to the how and why such an accident unfolded, the investigation is ongoing. But, nonetheless, a school bus, yet to drop off its final two students, found itself squarely at the epicenter of this tragic moment.

A young man, only 13 years old, was killed instantly. The lives of those left behind changed forever.

A bus driver thrown from the bus sustained serious injuries. A life of accusation, blame and guilt - irregardless of the outcome of the investigation, awaits him when he is released from the hospital.

A young lady, trapped within the mangled wreckage required "considerable efforts" of first-responders to extricate her tiny, helpless form from the bus. She was flown to Dallas Children's Hospital where she lies in critical condition, no doubt surrounded by her mother and father and family, as they all fight a battle they never saw coming.

It took several hours to free the bus from the train, and move the train down the tracks continuing its journey with a new crew.

Late last night around 10 or 11 pm, the lonesome, mournful sound of train horns passing the track resumed. as my wife put it "I can hear that train in the distance... it'll never be the same"

and thats true, a lot of things will never be the same, for a lot of folks in our small community.