I awaited this train in Austin to continue on the Eagle to LA.
It hit a semi, extensive damage to the engine, don't know what the truck looks like but we were told no fatalities and no injuries among the Amtrak passengers.
This was variously reported by those on the train for the crash as (1) a semi like stated above or (2) a farming tractor being pulled behind a truck of some kind. I believe the latter as those with that story had more specifics, and I can understand the confusion in the ambiguity resulting from someone hearing that "a tractor" was hit. I cannot find a news report online.
Numerous #1 passengers booked from SAS were bumped from their sleeper reservations to coach, I saw one lady take a refund and book herself on a flight. She was getting rid of everything the TSA disallows on flights before she left to go to the airport.
This may be true, but there was no reduction in sleeper accommodations on the train out of San Antonio (12 hours late). The instance I encountered akin to this was a couple who booked the Sunset Limited from east Texas and booked themselves into a sleeper once the Eagle joined. They were not accommodated that early morning with the Sunset in San Antonio and awaiting the Eagle's arrival.
Now, the eventual solution was to not use the sleeper that left Chicago but to pull out a sleeper mothballed in San Antonio. I suppose one could have expected that decision to have been made earlier and that mothballed sleeper to have been attached to the Sunset consist and provided to those on the Sunset who had booked a switch to the Eagle for a sleeper. However, the Sunset arrived at 2:30am, that mothballed car was not standing with linens and water bottles and towels in rooms, etc. The attendant needed 2 hours to prep the car for occupation -- and the attendant assigned to that car was on the Eagle a few hours away, so he could not set it up or attend to anyone who would occupy the car.
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I am not sure who the overseeing logician was in this situation, but they did a miserable job. Staff from Austin to LA expressed that communication from above was negligible and far from sufficient. First communication came from Amtrak at 5:05pm CT on Apr 10th through a text message. The train rolled from San Antonio at 2:40 pm on Apr 11th. During all but the last 20-30 minutes of that 21+ hours, there was very little information provided and extraordinarily little of the limited information about what would happen was accurate.
There were significant issues with, possibly among other things: 1) the apparent assessment of the situation, 2) development of a response plan to deliver passengers to their destinations as quickly as possible, and 3) conditions at the Austin station.
I think that I could write more about each of those than anyone wants to read. But I may get around to some.
