On May 25 at 2:20 a.m. a train collision involving a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train and a Union Pacific train occurred in Scott County near Cape Girardeau, Mo.

The trains collided and hit a pillar for the Route M overpass, causing the overpass to collapse and injuring seven people.

Later that day Mitch Herdon, sales representative of Erb Equipment Company received a phone call from Ryan Keck of R.J.Corman Derailment Service, asking if Erb Equipment could come up with an excavator shear package to send to the job site on an emergency basis.

Erb Equipment rented the customer a John Deere 600CLC (132,000 lb. [59,874 kg] excavator) with a Genesis GXP1200R (26,300 lb. [11,929 kg] shear with a jaw force of 2,470 tons [2,241 t]).

The equipment was shipped, delivered and working on site by 4:00 a.m. the next morning. The shear was used to remove 24 ft. (7.3 m) I beams from the bridge deck and also was used to remove and shear rail cars, pickup trucks that were being shipped on the trains.

The job was completed by end of the week on May 31. The completion of the job was in part due to the performance of the excavator/shear package.

Spritas Wrecking supplied the operator for the John Deere 600CLC because he had experience with operating a large Genesis shear. They own a Genesis GXP990R. Ahrens Contracting was on site doing work as well, according to Herdon.

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