Friends
remember Catlin man killed in truck-train crash
By
Noelle McGee
Tuesday
February 3, 2009
Lyndal Arnold
The offices at Prairie International
Trucks in Champaign were somber Tuesday as staff dealt with the death of a
longtime salesman who was killed in a truck-train collision west of Fairmount
on Monday afternoon.
But it wasn't all tears.
"There's been a lot of stories,
a lot of smiles," general manager Dick Kennedy said.
"Whenever you think of him, you
smile," he added, referring to 70-year-old Lyndal W. Arnold of Catlin.
The Vermilion County Sheriff's
Department still is investigating the collision that occurred at 3:59 p.m.
Monday on County Road 250 E at the Norfolk Southern railroad crossing. The
tracks are about four-tenths of a mile south of the Catlin-Homer Road.
Sgt. Bill Hurt said Mr. Arnold was
driving a 2000 Buick Regal north on 250 E. As he crossed the tracks, the
passenger side was struck by a train heading west.
The car came to a stop west of the
crossing, Hurt said. Vermilion County Coroner Peggy Johnson said Mr. Arnold was
pronounced dead at the scene.
The country crossing is marked with
"crossbuck" signs – signs with the words "railroad" and
"crossing" assembled to make an X configuration, Hurt said. But it
does not have a crossing arm, warning lights or signals.
While no other information was
available on Tuesday, Hurt did say that there was no indication that Mr.
Arnold's car got stuck on the tracks.
A lifelong Vermilion County
resident, Mr. Arnold grew up on a farm in Fithian, said his wife, Carolyn. He
started driving semitrailer trucks, then sold them for 40 years.
"He called himself Honest Abe
the Truck Peddler," Carolyn Arnold said, adding the name was even what he
used as his e-mail address. "He had a lot of old-time customers. Whenever
they wanted to buy a truck, they'd call him to appraise it. They knew he would
always give them an honest opinion."
Mr. Arnold started out selling
International Harvester trucks for a farm implement store in downtown Danville.
He went to Prairie International around 1986, and was a favorite salesman.
"He loved people, and people
loved him," Kennedy said. "He was very customer-oriented. He made
sure everything was done the way the customer needed it done. And he always
followed through to make sure the customer was happy."
Mr. Arnold retired three years ago,
but then went back to work full-time. "He just missed it," his wife
said.
The last time Carolyn Arnold saw her
husband alive was on Sunday. The two took their granddaughter to church at the
Danville United Church of Christ, then out to lunch. After saying goodbye, she
went to a birthday party, and he headed to a Super Bowl party at the
Springfield home of one of the owners of his company.
"He didn't drink," Carolyn
Arnold said, adding he did stay over in Springfield so that he could check the
truck lots of sites in Springfield and Decatur the next day. On his way home,
he made a stop in the Fairmount area. "He was seeing a customer."
She also said her husband was very
safety-conscious, especially when it came to trains. They live a block south of
the railroad tracks in Catlin. "He always made sure our kids never tried
to cross if there was a train," she said.
Carolyn Arnold said the couple would
have celebrated their golden anniversary in June. She called her husband
"a great family man," and said their home is filled with pictures of
him with his two children, Larry Arnold of Oakwood and Charlotte Christin of
Rockville, Md., and his grandchildren – Larry Wayne and Brielle Arnold and
Nikolai Christin, whom their daughter adopted from Russia.
Richard "Butch" Schmink
said Mr. Arnold was a great friend. He and his late wife, Marcia, met the
couple when they moved next door in 1967. When Schmink joined the Masonic Lodge
back in the 1970s, Mr. Arnold served as his coach.
The two couples also attended church
together. "He was a deacon for a while," Schmink recalled. "And
he'd help out with all of the dinners or just about anything they needed him
for. He was just an all-around good guy."