MENDON, Mo. -- The chief elected official in the Missouri county where an Amtrak train slammed into a dump truck said Tuesday that residents and county leaders have been pushing for a safety upgrade at the railroad crossing for nearly three years. Meanwhile, the toll from the accident rose to four deaths and 150 injuries.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol said people had been taken to 10 hospitals with injuries ranging from minor to serious. By Tuesday afternoon, at least 15 people remained hospitalized. The dead -- three passengers and the truck driver -- have not been identified.
Amtrak's Southwest Chief was traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago Monday afternoon when it struck the truck and derailed at the crossing. Amtrak officials said about 275 passengers and 12 crew members were aboard.
The crossing in a rural area near Mendon in western Missouri has no lights or other signals to warn of an approaching train.
Chariton County Presiding Commissioner Evan Emmerich said in an email to The Associated Press that resident Mike Spencer first brought his concerns about the crossing to a Dec. 2, 2019, commission meeting.
He was told to contact the Missouri Department of Transportation's Railroad Safety division. A week later, commissioners spoke with officials from the state agency and were told "it is on their plans to repair," Emmerich said.
After that, Emmerich cited other efforts by the commission including a May 31 call to BNSF Railway, which owns the track, "to express our concerns with the visibility issue" at the crossing.
In January, the Missouri Department of Transportation submitted to the Federal Railroad Administration its "State Freight & Rail Plan" plan. It included a proposal to install lights and gates, along with roadway improvements.
Department of Transportation spokeswoman Linda Horn said the crossing near Mendon "is identified for funding for improvements." Neither Horn nor a spokeswoman for Gov. Mike Parson immediately responded to emailed questions about why the county's request wasn't addressed sooner.
BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent said the company had not been made aware of the state's proposed upgrade. She said the next step would be a site review.
"We would work with all of the parties involved to determine if additional warning devices are needed and then work to get those designed, built and installed," Kent said.
Spencer told The Associated Press that he is among several people who have complained that the overgrowth of brush and the steep incline from the road to the tracks makes it hard to see oncoming trains from either direction. Spencer said the crossing is especially dangerous for those driving farm equipment.
Spencer is on the board of a local levy district. He said the dump truck driver was hauling rock for a levy on a local creek, a project that had been ongoing for a couple of days.
Earlier this month, Spencer posted a video on Facebook of the crossing that shows the steep gravel incline leading up to it.
"We have to cross this with farm equipment to get to several of our fields," Spencer wrote with the posting. "We have been on the RR for several years about fixing the approach by building the road up, putting in signals, signal lights or just cutting the brush back."
The post noted that some trains pass by at up to 90 mph.
"If you cross here with a vehicle stop, approach very slowly, then look both ways there are 2 tracks and around 85 trains go through there everyday," Spencer wrote.
Passengers included 16 youths and eight adults from two Boy Scout troops who were traveling home to Appleton, Wis., as well as high school students from Pleasant Ridge High School in Easton, Kan., who were headed to a Future Business Leaders of America conference in Chicago.
Amtrak is a federally supported company that operates more than 300 passenger trains daily in nearly every contiguous U.S. state and parts of Canada. The Southwest Chief takes about two days to travel from Los Angeles to Chicago, picking up passengers at stops in between.
Information for this article was contributed by Margaret Stafford and Jim Salter of The Associated Press.