(The following article by Connie Baggett was posted on the Mobile Register website on December 2.)
ATMORE, Ala. — Railroad workers continued to look on Monday for the cause of derailment that forced 28 coal cars from their tracks the day earlier along a CSX line between Canoe and Atmore in Escambia County.
The rail lines were reopened by 1 p.m. Monday, after workers cleared debris and righted the 28 cars, CSX spokesman Gary Sease said. No cause for the derailment had been determined, he said.
Sease said the tracks are inspected at least once a week because Amtrak uses the route. Sometimes, he said, the line is inspected twice a week by personnel in a truck that travels the route.
Each week, Amtrak’s Sunset Limited travels between the West Coast and Central Florida, taking three trips east and three trips west over the tracks in Escambia County. The train, carrying dozens of passengers, runs on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. An Amtrak scheduling agent said Monday that the passenger train was delayed about 90 minutes Sunday.
The freight cars derailed at about 9 a.m. Sunday, authorities said, with the cars crashing into each other on a high dirt bank near U.S. 31. No one was injured in the incident.
Sunday’s incident marked the third derailment in southwest Alabama in two weeks.
Drewy Vanetta Price, 55, of Atmore, died on Nov. 14, when an Alabama & Gulf Coast Railway train struck his truck at a crossing in the Monroe County community of Goodway.
Two engines on the freight train derailed. The engineer and conductor were hospitalized and released.
Days later, freight cars derailed on the Alabama Railroad in Peterman, north of Monroeville. No one was injured.