A Des Moines man’s charged with driving drunk after his car was hit by a train. Ames police say a Union Pacific train hit a car on the tracks at an Ames crossing just before 11 Monday night. The 1998 Ford Mustang turned out to be unoccupied.
Officers who pieced together the events of the evening say 37-year-old Jacob Todd Smith had tried to drive across tracks at the Kellogg crossing but was disoriented and turned onto the tracks. He found his tires stuck in the rails and the gravel around the tracks and couldn’t get the car off the tracks. Worse, there was a train coming.
Smith managed to get out of the car before the locomotive slammed into it. The car’s totaled, Smith is arrested for O-W-I. Cops and the Union Pacific continue to investigate.