(The following article by Darren Dunlap was posted on the Maryville Daily Times website on August 16.)
MARYVILLE, Tenn. — A CSX Transportation train derailed Monday afternoon on a section of tracks intersecting with Lively Road and West Hunt Road.
The train was traveling from Etowah to Corbin, Ky., said Ron Dunn, chief deputy of the Blount County Sheriff’s Office.
Out of 95 train cars, 52 derailed, he said. There were two train employees aboard. No injuries were reported.
“They’re all coal cars,” Dunn said. “They’re empty.”
Blount County Homeland Security Director Kelley Mure said the train cars were not carrying any hazardous materials. It was “just quite a big mess,” she said.
Dunn said CSX Transportation officials did not speculate on the cause of the derailment.
CSX Transportation is owned by CSX Corp., based in Jacksonville, Fla. The company planned to work through the night Monday and early today to have the line cleared and the train running within 24 hours, according to Dunn.
The BCSO responded at 3:45 p.m. Monday to the derailment. Alcoa Police and Fire Departments, and Rural/Metro Ambulance Service were on the scene to assist deputies.
The derailed train blocked access to homes on Lively Road, temporarily displacing residents. Dunn arranged for residents to cross the tracks and return to their homes, according to Mary Caylor, emergency services director with the Blount County Chapter of the Red Cross. Otherwise, the Red Cross was prepared to provide shelter for the residents Monday night, she said.
“We have no families displaced or evacuated,” said Dunn.
Several witnesses heard the train derailment near the intersection of West Hunt Road and Armona Road. The tracks cross West Hunt Road, which was closed Monday night while CSX crews cleared the wreckage.
James Shelton, of Knoxville, was cutting up storm-damaged white pine trees at 1171 W. Hunt Road, next to the tracks, when the train derailed. Shelton, a former railroad worker, did not have to look up to know what had happened. Though it’s been 35 years since he worked as a telephone lineman on the railroad, he knew the sound that a train makes when it jumps the tracks.
“That’s when I started to run,” Shelton said.
He didn’t look back until he was uphill from the intersection, about 50 yards away.
While some cars had slipped off the tracks, still upright, about six others had jumped the tracks completely and were close to Armona Road.
Sam Wicker, a resident of Stonecreek Mobile Home Park, was driving down Armona Road when the train derailed. Gravel from the tracks pelted the windshield of his car and he saw the train cars “flying” toward him.
“I figured, `I’m dead,”‘ Wicker, who was not injured, said.
Billy and Bobbie Painter, who could see the wreckage from their Armona Road residence, said they felt the house shaking when the train began its pass. They expected to hear the train’s whistle next.
“It usually blows, and you hear it,” said Bobbie Painter. “Then I heard this loud noise, a sound like I’d never heard before.”
Bill McKelvey, who lives in Stonecreek Mobile Home Park, walked away from the sight of the wreckage with one consolation.
He said, “This will be the first time in 15 years we won’t have to listen to a train at night.”