(The Rocky Mountain News posted the following article on its website on February 17.)
GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. — Work crews will be laboring through today to remove two locomotives and rail cars jolted off the tracks when a Union Pacific coal train derailed in Glenwood Canyon.
Railroad spokesman John Bromley, of Omaha, said Monday that 41 cars derailed in the Sunday accident, including two helper locomotives in the middle of the train.
The two or three locomotives at the front of the 105-car train stayed on the tracks, he said. No one was injured in the derailment.
“We don’t have an estimated time of removal yet,” Bromley said. “But nothing went into the river that we know of.”
Interstate 70 traffic wasn’t affected because the tracks are on the opposite side of the Colorado River at the point the train derailed, about one mile west of the Grizzly Creek rest stop.
Amtrak passengers were being taken by bus between Glenwood Springs and Dotsero for transfer to trains to continue their trips, Bromley said.