Police Report: Truck Driver in Rosedale Train Derailment on Cell Phone

The driver of the truck in the May 28 CSX train derailment that caused an explosion that shook the east side of Baltimore told police he was on a hands-free cell phone device and didn't hear the first blasts of the train horn before the crash.

Baltimore County police Friday released a 19-page report on the accident one day after charging the driver, John Alban Jr., owner of the trucking company, with several misdemeanors in the derailment and explosion. The report also indicates Alban wasn't wearing a seatbelt.

In the report, Alban told police he was crossing the tracks near his Rosedale trash hauling business, talking on his hands-free cellphone device, when he slowed to make a turn and cross the tracks near Lake Drive in Rosedale. 

“As he was crossing the tracks, he heard the train horn and looked up at the same time as the train hit him,” according to the report of the June 19 interview between police crash scene investigators and Alban. 

The report notes that the train, which was traveling 49 mph at the time of the collision, tore a large hole in the roll-on container the truck was carrying. The cab of the truck was “twisted around, off of the frame and facing upward.”

The police report notes that Alban was found lying on the ground outside the rear window of the cab and that damage indicates that Alban was not wearing his seatbelt at the time of the collision.

Alban, in his interview, told police he remembered that he “had a hold on something with my left hand and lowered myself to the ground” where he laid face down until paramedics arrived, according to the report.

Witnesses at the scene also told investigators that Alban told them after the accident that he did not see or hear the train. 

Alban was the driver of a trash hauling truck owned by his waste hauling business that is located a short distance from the accident scene.

Police investigators and a video that captures the accident from a nearby business show that the truck driven by Alban did not stop before crossing the tracks. The train struck the rear of the truck and traveled a short distance before a number of cars derailed.

Two of those cars were carrying chemicals that caught fire and exploded less than 5 minutes later.

Alban suffered injuries that required him to be taken to the shock trauma center at the University of Maryland Medical Center. He has since been released.

On Thursday, police announced they charged Alban with seven misdemeanor traffic violations related to the collision.

Alban and Alban Waste, located at 1001 68th Street, are the subject of a $225,000 federal lawsuit filed by CSX earlier this month.

The lawsuit alleges that Alban should have stopped at the crossing and CSX points to numerous safety violations related to trucks owned by Alban as well as Alban’s driving record.

The train derailment remains under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.

A preliminary report issued last week the NTSB Wednesday found that the Rosedale intersection where the collision occurred had no active warning lights or gates.

In addition, two yellow stop signs "had faded significantly, and both had been displaced from their original mountings.” One of the signs regulating traffic on the northbound side of the tracks was hung upside down facing away from the roadway, according to the one-page preliminary report.

The report did not assess blame for the derailment and a full report could take a year to complete.