The Nevada Department of Public Safety-Highway Patrol Division has learned the identities of the truck driver and two of the train passengers who were killed in the fatality collision involving a commercial motor vehicle and an Amtrak passenger train last Friday around 11:22 am on US Highway 95 in Churchill County, approximately 70 miles east of Reno.
43-year-old Lawrence R. Valli of Winnemucca, Nevada, was killed when the front of his 2008 Peterbilt tractor, that was towing two 2007 SmithCo side dump trailers, collided with the left side of a westbound Amtrak train at a controlled railroad crossing or intersection. Valli had been traveling northbound on the two-lane highway where the posted speed limit is 70 miles per hour. Although evidence at the crash scene indicates the vehicle’s brakes were applied, Mr. Valli was unable to stop his vehicle safely in time for the passing train. The collision resulted in two of the occupied rail cars to catch fire resulting in 6 confirmed deaths to date. There are still 5 passengers unaccounted for this morning.
Two of the fatality victims riding on the train have been positively identified by the Washoe County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office as 58-year-old Francis Knox and her 18-year-old daughter, Karly Knox, of Seward, Nebraska. As soon as the other victims involved in this horrific tragedy are identified, we will be releasing their names.
—Chuck Allen, Nevada Highway Patrol
