(The following story by Mariano Castillo appeared on the San Antonio Express-News website on November 10.)
SAN ANTONIO — A Union Pacific train knocked a stationary boxcar into a cold storage facility this morning, killing one man and injuring another, authorities said.
The incident happened at about 9:15 a.m. at the Crystal Cold Storage facility in the 4200 block of Profit Drive on the city’s near Northeast Side.
The Union Pacific train was backing into a parked string of five boxcars to transport them, but accidentally struck the sitting boxcars, sending one off of the tracks and into the adjacent cold storage facility.
Bruening’s office was on the other side of the wall.
The injured man, who was working inside one of the stationary boxcars, was taken to a local hospital and was reported to be in stable condition, authorities said.
Officials at the scene described the injured man as a train employee, but John Bromley, spokesman for Union Pacific, said that no railroad employees were hurt in the incident. According to his information, he said, the injured man worked for the cold storage facility.
Although the boxcar left the train tracks, it remained upright.
The impact caused approximately 200 gallons of diesel fuel to leak out, though most of it was contained at the scene and did not pose a hazard, fire officials said.
The episode marked the sixth train derailment in as many months in Bexar County.
The incident is being investigated as an accident, Trevino said.
Union Pacific officials also were investigating.
“We don’t know yet whether it was human error or mechanical,” Bromley said.
Five people were in and around the building when it was struck, including Bruening and the man injured.
Other employees from the cold storage and neighboring building were moved.
“Right now we evacuated all the employees out of the plant and we’re going to send them home,” said Arquelio Ramirez, assistant manager at Superior Foods Warehouse, which was the building adjacent to the cold storage building.
Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff visited the scene this morning and pledged to continue to lobby for more regulation from federal authorities.
“We’re hoping to get a lot more forceful regulation coming from Washington,” he said.