When you open the loading dock door and see this, you know it's going to be a bad day. Cartage driver had a major problem with backing a rail trailer into the dock. 

On Nov 8, 2005, a cartage driver brought in a trailer from the rail yard. He was advised to drop it in Door 24. The Manager heard a crash and went to investigate. She called me and when I got there, this is what I discovered:

While attempting to spot the trailer in the door, he had brushed against the retaining wall on the right, and then straightened up and backed into the trailer on the left, at about a 30 degree angle.

He hit the fully loaded trailer in Door 23 hard enough to push it sideways enough to buckle the landing gear. This trailer then rolled over into a loaded Swift trailer in Door 22.

The Clipper trailer hit the Swift trailer with enough force to bend the cross-brace on the landing gear and put a substantial dent in the wall of the trailer itself.

All three trailers were loaded with about 42,000lbs of product each. At the time of the accident, there was a empty Swift trailer in Door 21, too.

Once the tow driver lifted the Clipper trailer enough for me to be able to remove the Swift trailer, we noted that there was only paint scrapes on the side of the trailer. Thank goodness for Wabash toughness in their trailers!

When I left at the end of my shift, they were waiting for someone to show up with shoring blocks and bracing so that the trailer could be set upright and unloaded.

Here are some of the pictures I took. 

McKelvey driver picked up a trailer and drove out the gate without checking to make sure the tandem slider was locked in position. He didn't get very far before he slammed the tandems into the rear stops on the frame. The driver tried to blame it on me...saying that I must have damaged it by backing into the dock too hard. The pictures changed their tune real quick...once they saw the type of damage.

More pictures on Photo Page.