WOMAN ESCAPES INJURY IN COLLISION OF CR, TRAIN

DELTA -- Two "slow orders" on the St. Louis-Southwestern (Cotton Belt) Railroad Monday likely saved the life of a rural Chaffee woman whose car was struck by a freight train east of Delta.

A spokesman for the Missouri Highway Patrol said Betty J. Hicks, 48, of rural Chaffee, was not injured when the train struck her car at a railroad crossing of Cape Girardeau County Road 249.

State Trooper Leo McElrath IV said the accident occurred at about 2:40 p.m., while Hicks was en route to Delta from her home on the county road.

He said Hicks reported she failed to see the approaching train until she was at the grade crossing, where McElrath said she attempted to beat the train to the crossing.

The locomotive struck the rear of the vehicle, spinning it on the road.

McElrath said the train was traveling at about 45 mph when it collided with the car.

"She's very lucky," he said. "The speed limit at the crossing was 50 mph. The engineer had reduced his speed because of a slow order due to the heat."

A Cotton Belt spokesman said the normal speed limit on the tracks at that crossing is 70 mph, but it has been reduced between Rockview and Delta because of the intense heat and construction on the Highway 77 railroad overpass north of Chaffee.

McElrath said he measured at least 82 feet of eastward visibility of the track at the crossing.

He said the accident likely would have been fatal or resulted in serious injury if the train had been traveling at the normal speed limit.