(The following article by Mackenzie Ryan was posted on the St. Cloud Times website on February 3.)
SAUK RAPIDS, Minn. — The tail-end of a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train derailed in Sauk Rapids early Wednesday afternoon, spilling three carloads of coal and briefly halting other trains.
A wheel on one of the last cars broke, causing the car to slip off the track for about a mile before tipping the three cars, foreman Graham Hendrickson said.
No one was injured. Sauk Rapids police said late Wednesday they expect River Avenue to be closed to local traffic during the cleanup.
“It could have been a lot worse,” Hendrickson said. “Luckily, it was at the end.”
The train was pulling more than 100 coal cars from the Powder River Basin mines on the Wyoming-Montana border to Becker when the cars tipped behind the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6992 in Sauk Rapids.
“They felt it tip, and that was it,” Hendrickson said.
Jason Harris of St. Cloud was driving on Benton Drive alongside the train about 1:30 p.m. when he noticed a cloud of dirt — almost like snow, he said — coming from the last car of the train. The car was leaning off the track and was hurtled about 3 feet into the air when it crossed 10th Street North.
“The wheel of the car hit the asphalt, and the car itself jumped up in the air,” he said.
The car fell on its side and was dragged for about 30 yards before pulling two more cars over, Harris said.
The train released the cars and stopped before reaching First Street. Railroad crossings were not affected although trains were halted until a wheel was removed from a parallel track, said Steve Forsberg, spokesman for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.
Hendrickson estimates it could take two to three days to clean up the coal.
About 50 trains run on the track each day, one of the busiest routes the railroad uses, Forsberg said.
The railroad is investigating and would not comment on a cause. It is too early to estimate damages, he said.
“Three cars is a very small number to be derailed in a mile-long train,” he said.
The railroad inspects the track several times a week and trains and cargo every 1,000 miles, Forsberg said. Warning devices every 25 miles detect excess heat.
The railroad averages about three derailments every million miles traveled, Forsberg said.
In December, 10 cars derailed near the Lincoln Depot restaurant in St. Cloud, closing two main tracks and causing delays on the main line between the Twin Cities and the Pacific Northwest.