" wrote:

I wonder from how far away the train going 62MPH would
have been visible? If it only became visible a short
distance away, that could explain a lot of it. Still, with
the signals and gates apparently working, it being
daylight, it's really a strange one.

Midland Tx is town about 10 x 10 sq miles.

There appears to be a single rail line passing through it. This line is
dead straight through the town, as well as at least several miles
outside of town in either direction.

This incident happened at the rail crossing on S. Garfield St. There
are two roads that run parallel to Garfield on either side of the tracks
- W. Front street (Tx highway 20) to the north, and W. Industrial Ave to
the south. Those roads appear to be about 100 ft from the tracks, with
just a grass strip separating them (no buildings or other structures).

The visibility of any oncoming trains would have been excellent.

There is just a single rail line (not double or multiple tracks) so
there would have been no parked rail cars on other tracks to obscure the
view.

Here is a google satellite view of the crossing:

http://goo.gl/maps/yGGwm

Seeing how much space the rail corridor has, it's very believable that
the train was going 62 mph.

What probably happened is that the parade was going north-bound and got
stopped a the lights on Front street. The tractor-trailer was following
too closely and stopped on the tracks. The driver was too focused on
maintaining his spacing in the parade to notice the train. The trailer
could have been stopped over the tracks for as little as two minutes -
with the train 2 miles away and hence the driver wouldn't have even seen
the train at that distance when he got to the tracks.