By Justin Franz 

STRASBURG, Pa. — The day after Norfolk & Western 475 collided with an excavator — in an accident that was streamed live via a webcam and quickly spread across the internet — the Strasburg Rail Road began making repairs to the damaged locomotive. 

On Thursday, shop crews at the Strasburg were making repairs to the smokebox and headlight, both of which were heavily damaged in the incident. Officials tell Railfan & Railroad that they expect repairs to progress quickly, but that they are not entirely sure when the locomotive will return to service. Meanwhile, the Federal Railroad Administration has opened an investigation into the incident. 

A screenshot of the Virtual Railfan webcam at Paradise, Pa., moments before Norfolk & Western 4-8-0 475 collided with an excavator. 

On Wednesday morning, locomotive 475 was running around its train at Paradise, Pa., where the Strasburg’s excursions turn back to their namesake. As the locomotive passed the train on the other track, the crew was waving to passengers and apparently did not see that the switch in front of them was misaligned. The locomotive went through a misaligned switch and right into an maintenance of way excavator. The bucket of the excavator punched a hole through the locomotive’s smokebox. The railroad quickly dispatched another locomotive to bring the passengers back to Strasburg and 475 was later dragged back to the shop. 

The entire incident was broadcast live by Virtual Railfan, which has a camera at Paradise. That clip plus a video taken by a passenger spread across the internet like wildfire on Wednesday afternoon. 

No one was injured during the collision, but Strasburg tells Railfan & Railroad that they are using the incident to look at its own training practices to ensure something like this does not happen again. 

“Safety is at the forefront of everything at Strasburg Rail Road. On any given day we have as many as 75 employees working in our operation and several thousand guests ride our trains and rely on our commitment to safety. We are cooperating with FRA as they investigate and will comply with their requirements and recommendations,” the railroad told Railfan & Railroad. “Additionally, we are using this opportunity to perform root cause analysis and identify training gaps, operational monitoring practices, or other factors that may have contributed to this accident. We continue to be proud of our dedicated, professional staff who care deeply for the people who work on and ride our trains every day.”