Workers survey the damage Tuesday after a car carrier became stuck as it attempted to travel under the railroad bridge on McCalmont Road in Penn Township on Monday.

BUTLER TWP — A trucker who had dropped off new automobiles at Baglier Mazda on Route 68 in Connoquenessing Township got stuck Monday evening under a train trestle on McCalmont Road.

The truck's cab protruded from the one-lane trestle, which is owned by Canadian National Railway, while heavy damage was visible to the police and other crews who responded to the accident.

Police promptly closed McCalmont Road, which connects Meridian Road to Route 8.

Canadian National brought a crane to the site around 8 a.m. Tuesday to begin work on the trestle.

Four workers approached the trestle to assess the predicament, and men took pictures of the trestle with high-tech cameras and scanners.

“We're going to try to get it out of there,” one of the employees said. “Hopefully, we can get it done today.”

Road reopens Tuesday afternoon

PennDOT District 10 Butler County Manager Mike Mattis said that McCalmont Road was reopened around 3 p.m. Tuesday.

“The railroad company is OK with us opening it, so we did,” Mattis said.

The truck was driven by John Duvall IV, 24, of Maryland, according to township police reports.

Duvall was eastbound on McCalmont Road when he attempted to drive under the small trestle.

The underpass clearance of 11 feet, 6 inches was marked on a sign, which was also damaged by the truck.

“Duvall's trailer struck the I-beams of the bridge, causing it to fall on the trailer,” the report said.

There were no injuries in the accident.Duvall told police he was heading for the Pennsylvania Turnpike on his return trip to Maryland and was following the directions on his GPS, said Lt. Matthew Pearson of the Butler Township Police.Duvall will be charged with driving an overweight truck and disobeying traffic control devices.Pushing clearance limitOver the years, there have been trucks that have pushed the clearance limit, but made it through the underpass — barely. “It happened last year,” said police Sgt. Jim Sasse. “A big box truck just made it through and scraped it underneath. It was a tight squeeze.” Occasional near-misses at the McCalmont Road trestle have occurred over the years. “But this is by far the worst,” Pearson said. Or, at least, that he could remember.Regarding the clearance, Mattis said PennDOT crews measure the distance from the bottom of the underpass to the road surface each time they patch or pave at a trestle.He said the last time McCalmont Road was paved there, crews inspected to ensure the clearance hadn't changed. “We haven't paved anything there that would have changed that distance,” Mattis said.AK Steel spokeswoman Lisa Jester said from the company's headquarters in West Chester, Ohio, that the Butler plant would not be affected by the accident, even though the railroad tracks lead directly to the plant. “The damage to the bridge has no impact to our business,” Jester said.Canadian National Railway officials did not return requests for comment by the Eagle on Tuesday.

A car carrier winds up stuck under the train trestle as it attempted to travel through the tunnel on McCalmont Road in Penn Township on Monday.