(The following article by Rich Peterson was posted on the Great Fall Tribune website on June 26.)
POPLAR, Mont. — Crews opened the Hi-Line’s main rail line Sunday evening after 13 of 59 cars on a freight train derailed in Poplar early Sunday.
No one was injured in the derailment.
“A couple of neighbors said their houses shook,” said Tilli Haugen, who lives just across the street from train wreck.
The crashing sound woke her husband, she said, but she slept on.
“People are still amazed that I slept through it,” she said.
Officials arrived on site Sunday afternoon but no cause of the derailment had yet been determined, said Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Co. spokesman Gus Melonas. The wreck happened about 6 a.m. at Poplar, near the town’s former depot and grain elevators.
The train was pulling onto a siding when the derailment occurred, he said.
Melonas said crews got the rail company’s main line cleared by 8:30 p.m. Sunday night; he said the siding, or the stretch of tracks off to the side of the main line, is expected to reopen today.
Hundreds of Poplar residents gathered earlier Sunday on a natural ledge overlooking the accident site as crews studied the twisted rail tracks and wreckage.
Dan Anderson, who owns Lee Ann’s Motel with his wife, joined the crowd on the cliff around 1 p.m., he said in a phone interview.
“It’s big entertainment for the Poplar crowd,” he said.
No hazardous materials were involved with the 13 cars that derailed, including one refrigerator car.
Eleven cars were tipped on their sides and two were upright. The cars were carrying veneer, lumber, print paper, apples and cheese, Melonas said. The train originated in Pasco, Wash., and was headed to Chicago.
Meanwhile, Amtrak rail passengers were being bused between Havre and Minot, N.D., said an Amtrak clerk in Havre. With the main track open now, normal passenger service is expected to resume.
BNSF crews came to Poplar from Havre and Billings to help with salvage efforts.