(The following report appeared on the website on the Peoria Journal-Star December 12.)
EVANSVILLE — Walking into the village board meeting, Danny Schilling heard the awful screeching and “just banging and crashing noises” from the nearby railroad tracks.
Surely, he muttered, all the racket Monday evening couldn’t be the second train derailment in four days in this 740-resident outpost about 50 miles southeast of St. Louis.
It was.
Crews on Tuesday were hustling to clear the seven cars that derailed from the 124-car, coal-hauling Union Pacific train, not far from where a dozen cars left the tracks last Thursday in this Randolph County community along the Kaskaskia River.
No injuries or evacuations resulted in either case. No coal spilled in the Monday night derailment that damaged about 250 yards of track and left five of the untracked cars leaning and the other two upright, Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said. Last week, 10 coal-loaded cars tipped over, he said.
While crews worked Tuesday to clear the tracks and remove the coal from the derailed cars, 58-year-old Erwin “Red” Becker – the village’s mayor for nearly a quarter century – retained his sense of humor: “Looks like everyone in Evansville is getting coal for Christmas.”