(The following report by Frank Peebles appeared on the Prince George Citizen website on August 7.)
PRINCE GEORGE — According to CN officials Monday, “no product entered the river” as a result of the fiery train derailment this weekend. But Citizen photos, such as the one above, show otherwise. The fire was burning fuel spilled into the water during the aftermath of two trains that crashed together at about 10:30 a.m. only a few feet above the Fraser River shoreline.
A provincial Ministry of Environment official said he toured the scene by riverboat about an hour after the crash and saw no sign of diesel fuel in the Fraser but this could be explained by CN’s information Monday that the diesel car believed to have ruptured in the incident was in fact intact throughout.
It was gasoline that fueled the flames.
“We had three locomotives and one lumber car derail on the northbound train, and two gasoline tanker cars derailed on the southbound train,” said CN spokeswoman Kelli Svendsen. She reiterated that, to her knowledge, “the environmental people that were on site confirmed that no product entered the water.”
She said that CN personnel, working under the supervision of local emergency authorities, got as close to the fire as was possible to uncouple the unburned cars from the burning ones. Once the fire was out, CN workers were in immediate action to repair the rail bed and tracks. By Sunday at 3:30 p.m. trains were rolling once again on that section.
CN Rail has concluded its own internal investigation (see related story) and further probes are still underway by the federal Transportation Safety Board and the provincial Ministry of Environment.