Another possibility, which a train I was on discovered, is that the plow might push it aside only for it to bounce off something else and back under the cars. I was on an Amtrak that hit some garbage piled on the track at speed, which blew it out of the way, but it was under the Herndon Ave. overcrossing so stuff bounced off the slope under the bridge and back under the cars, tearing off a brake line and damaging other things underneath, with predictable consequences.

I could have walked home from there in 1/2 hour or so, but my car was down at the station (it was Not Good to leave vehicles in the lot after the last train passed and the station closed); took about 3 hours to patch things up enough to crawl from Herndon to the station at restricted speed, with a long pause at Bullard siding for all the backed-up freights to pass, and have buses meet the train there for those going farther than Fresno. BNSF, I'm sure, was not amused. Never heard of anybody being prosecuted (or found) for that episode, though, and since there was no derailment and fire there was nothing newsworthy about it. Just another day (night) on the San Joaquin line.