Caltrain hits tractor-trailer in Burlingame

There were about 67 passengers on the train who were able to disembark about 50 minutes after the crash, White said. Caltrain switched to single-tracking, and another southbound train picked the passengers up from the Broadway station soon after. Train delays of half an hour or less continued into the afternoon, he said. Police directed car traffic past the crossing, which was blocked off while it was being cleared. 

“Sometimes it can be far worse,” White said, noting that there were no injuries. 

Store manager Fabiana Pires was working at Maverick Jack’s when she thought she had heard something falling in the kitchen. It turned out to be the sound of the train hitting the truck. 

It looked like the train had struck the back of the truck, which then clipped an SUV, she said. First responders on the scene did not want to comment, though Pires said the driver of the SUV had no injuries but was taken away in an ambulance. 

“It was a scary scene,” said John Kevranian, co-owner of Nuts for Candy & Toys on Broadway and president of the Broadway Burlingame Business Improvement District. He heard sirens, and walked to the intersection about 10 minutes after the crash. When he saw the train stopped on the tracks, he thought a car or pedestrian had been hit. 

“There were ambulances, there were fire trucks, all kinds of emergency people there,” he said. 

A crossing arm, the bar that comes down between traffic and the tracks when a train comes by, was damaged. A crew from Caltrain was working on it when the truck pulled away from the crossing and parked around the corner more than an hour after being struck. 

The Broadway crossing has a reputation for being dangerous. There has been a push for “grade separation,” turning the crossing into an underpass to let trains pass over traffic instead of through it. The project will cost an estimated $316 million. 

“We have to get this project funded, we have to start this project as soon as possible,” Kevranian said. “We have seen accidents, we have seen death, we have seen catastrophe at this location.”