(The following story by Alan Reed appeared on the Williston Herald website on March 18, 2009.)
WILLISTON, N.D. — A BNSF Railway train that was positioning grain cars on a Williston yard track Tuesday morning resulted in nine cars derailing while crossing a wooden bridge on the west edge of the city.
BNSF Railway regional director of public affairs Gus Melonas said Tuesday afternoon the derailment happened at 7:50 a.m.
The derailment scene showed one grain car plummeted into the bottom of a creek that flows under the bridge adjacent to a dirt road. A second upright grain car on the west side was titled toward the south after it fell off the tracks, while wooden bridge timbers were strewn against its front on the east side.
The majority of the spilled wheat is east of the bridge on the south embankment of the railway bed. That’s also where four other grain cars came to rest after leaving the tracks.
“We will vacuum the product off the ground and from the rail cars. We are bringing in equipment to rerail some cars and we will shove some cars off to the side,” Melonas said of the process to clean up the derailment site. “The track where the derailment occurred is not interfering with yard operations and the adjacent main line is fully operational,” he added.
Melonas said the train was traveling less than 10 mph when the incident occurred.
There were no injuries and no hazardous materials were involved.
“There is no threat to the environment,” Melonas said. “BNSF officials are investigating and have not determined a cause at this point.”
A total of 25 BNSF staff arrived Tuesday to deal with the clean-up effort, Melonas said.
By late Tuesday afternoon, the crew had disconnected the rest of the train cars from those that had derailed, which also opened road access to the south that was blocked due to the incident.
The crew worked at rerailing cars to remove them, while also addressing those cars, which were completely off the tracks.