STOCKTON, Calif. — A broken track caused the 25-car train derailment that on Sunday shattered the calm of a North Stockton neighborhood, Union Pacific Railroad officials confirmed Monday.
According to the Stockton Record, the 118-car freight train was on its way from Roseville to Stockton about 9:30 a.m. Sunday when the derailment occurred. No one was injured.
John Bromley, spokesman for Union Pacific Railroad, said the area of track that threw more than two dozen cars off the line had been visually inspected Friday and electronically inspected in October, but the rails appeared to be in good order.
But he said breaks in the line could occur suddenly for any number of reasons, including temperature changes.
“Mainline tracks are inspected three times a week,” Bromley said. “We also send out detector cars which are electronic cars that look for hidden flaws in the rails.”
And, Bromley said, periodic maintenance is performed on rails that have borne a specific weight load over time.
Stockton Fire Department responded with six engines, two trucks and a hazardous-materials team to help evaluate whether any of the rail cars were leaking toxic materials. The San Joaquin County Office of Emergency Services also responded. No hazardous-materials leaks were found.
Crews replaced about 300 yards of track Sunday and Monday, diverting about 12 trains to other routes in order to do so. Tracks were expected open by 11 p.m. Monday.
The estimated 3,500 gallons of paraffin wax that spilled alongside the track was bound for Duraflame Inc., a Stockton-based company that makes manufactured fire logs using paraffin wax and other materials.
Company Vice President Chris Caron, who heads the marketing division, said the rail car carried about 23,000 gallons of the paraffin under normal circumstances.
“I know there’s still quite a bit in the car, and they were talking to us about how to unload the material from the overturned car and get it to us,” he said. “As far as I know, this is the first derailment spill we’ve had.”
The loss was “like a drop in the bucket” for the company, Caron said.
“We have probably 20 or 30 rail cars full of wax waiting to be unloaded at … our factory at the Port of Stockton,” he said.
Peggy Heskett, 69, spent Saturday night in a home on Oakhurst Street, which backs up to the portion of the Union Pacific line where about 20 cars jumped the track. She said she listened to other trains as they went by that night and noticed a difference in the sound they made.
“They usually just go by so smooth,” she said. “But this was a long one that came by and it just clicked a lot.”
Heskett even commented to her husband about the noise.
“We talked about how it was making a different sound,” she said. “And we wondered if something was loose, but of course we didn’t do anything about it. It sounded like one wheel on each boxcar was going into a gap.”
Heskett said she is thankful no one was hurt in the derailment.
“I just kept thinking about that during (Sunday) night, thinking I should have called,” she said. “But I didn’t know who to call.”
Union Pacific spokesman Mike Furtney said anyone wanting to report a problem with a rail line should call Union Pacific’s Response Management Center, which is staffed at all times.
That number: (800) 892-1283.