MENDON, Mo. — The family of a woman killed in the June 27 Amtrak train crash and derailment filed a wrongful death lawsuit Wednesday against the company that maintains and operates the railroad tracks and the company for which the dump truck driver was working.
Rachelle Cook was one of four people killed when an Amtrak train crashed into a dump truck at a rural railway crossing near Mendon, Missouri. The lawsuit, filed by a Kansas City-area law firm, accuses the railway company and one of its employees of failing to maintain the crossing and the concrete contracting company operating the dump truck involved in the crash.
The lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of Cook's adult children, alleges BNSF Railway Company failed to cut back overgrown vegetation that blocked visibility, failed to pave or correct loose gravel at the crossing and failed to add gates bells or other safety equipment at the crossing.
The crossing where the collision occurred has no lights, signals or gates to warn of an approaching train. Before the crash, area residents had expressed concerns about the safety of the crossing, described by locals and a federal transportation safety official as very steep.
The lawsuit said $400,000 was approved in MoDOT's budget to provide improvements to railroad crossings statewide, but BNSF did not utilize the funds "despite the long history of complaints from residents and the State of Missouri’s conclusions that safety improvements were needed at the subject crossing."
The lawsuit also alleges that MS Contracting LLC, of Brookfield, Missouri, was negligent vicariously through the actions of the truck driver Billy Barton II, who was killed in the crash.
An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board found the train was traveling 89 mph, just below the 90 mph speed limit, when the crash occurred. The report also said the train began blowing its horn about a quarter mile from the crash scene.
The lawsuit is seeking at least $25,000 for each of the four counts in the lawsuit.
On June 30, Amtrak and BNSF Railway Co. filed a federal lawsuit against MS Contracting. That lawsuit blames MS Contracting, saying the train was “clearly visible” and that truck driver was careless in crossing the tracks.
That same day, the truck driver's widow, Erin Barton, also sued, filing a wrongful-death lawsuit in state court against Chariton County and a BNSF official that cited the crossing as unsafe.