(The Belleville Intelligencer posted the following story by Derek Baldwin and Barry Ellsworth on its website on July 26.)
TYENDINAGA TOWNSHIP, Ontario — Five months after a fiery derailment on the Canadian Pacific Railway east of Belleville, this municipality s emergency personnel scrambled to the scene of another railway mishap Friday.
The incident happened on a separate set of double tracks owned by Canadian National Railway.
Fire and police were dispatched to a stretch of rail near Wymans Road to respond to word that a CN Rail freight had derailed around 11 a.m. and that there could be chemicals leaking from one of the cars.
When Tyendinaga Township volunteer firefighters arrived however, they discovered that a nearly-empty chemical railway tanker car carrying chlorine had experienced trouble.
Two of the car s wheels on a single axle jumped the tracks said CN officials.
CN spokesman Ian Thomson said in an interview we had one axle from a residual chlorine car come off the rail. The car remained upright and there was no problem there.
Thomson said the train engines and cars coupled together in front of the damaged railway chlorine car were forwarded to Montreal while CN officials worked Friday to determine where they will put the remaining cars.
Napanee OPP Sr. Const. Jackie Perry said detachment officers investigated after they received complaints that the train was blocking intersections along Airport Road.
Preliminary investigation revealed, said Perry, cars attached to the CN train are upright. Mechanical crews are on scene repairing the car.
Perry said Highway 2 was also reopened after it was closed briefly to help authorities contain the scene.
A hazardous materials unit (CN HAZMAT) was brought in to inspect the railway car that derailed but ruled that it was not leaking any chemicals.
Tyendinaga Township Fire Chief Wayne Prest said late Friday that he was relieved to hear all was fine, especially following the explosive derailment last February which sent tankers containing liquid petroleum gas flying into neighbouring fields when they exploded from the flames and heat.
The worry at the fire last February was that dangerous chemicals could be released into the air from damaged chemical cars and 500 residents were evacuated in any event until the danger subsided.
Prest said no such danger existed at Friday s minor derailment.
We were relieved to hear there was a residual amount of chlorine in the tanker. It was just about empty, said Prest. We were really lucky this time.
Around 3 p.m ., Prest said he was informed that the hazardous materials team has cleared the damaged tanker car as safe from leaks. Normal traffic resumed shortly afterwards.
Investigation, meanwhile, continues by the National Transportation Safety Board into the cause of the Feb. 21 CP Rail derailment.
In that derailment, railway cars became rockets here after a fiery derailment of two freight trains, 25 kilometres northeast of Belleville. Propane-filled tanker cars were blown sky high when their pressurized contents boiled to the point they set off massive explosions that jettisoned rail cars in all directions.
The force of the blasts shook homes as far away as Kingston and Napanee, said OPP at the time.