(The following story by John Byrne appeared on the Gary Post-Tribune website on December 23.)
BURNS HARBOR, Ind. — UPS workers continued their mission to save the holidays Saturday, sifting through the debris of a derailed freight train in search of waylaid nuggets of cheer.
A team of about 50 UPS employees spent the day recovering packages from the wreckage of the Norfolk Southern train which derailed Friday morning near U.S. 12 and Indiana 249.
It could be several weeks before Norfolk Southern investigators figure out why the train bound from Secaucus, N.J., to Chicago derailed.
Though the vast majority of the packages were standard business mail, about 20,000 packages were pulled from the accident site and loaded onto trucks, according to UPS community relations manager Mike Johl.
Workers had identified nearly 2,000 packages in the wreckage they believe are holiday-related shipments bound for points west of Chicago, Johl said Saturday afternoon.
“If the package has a wreath on it, or if it’s addressed from John to Mike — instead of from John’s Office Supply to Mike’s Office — then there’s a good chance it’s a holiday package,” Johl said.
“We’re treating those shipments between individual people as holiday packages, and upgrading them to air transport.”
No reindeer-drawn sleigh being available, Johl said the presents will travel by truck to Rockford, Ill., where they will be loaded onto airplanes to complete their joy-bringing journeys.
Another 700 holiday packages were headed to the Chicago area, and Johl said those will go out to recipients Monday morning on trucks.
Much of the cargo on the train was on its way to western cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas.
An internal investigation into the causes of the derailment at 6:40 a.m. Friday could take a couple more weeks, according to Norfolk Southern spokesman Rudy Husband.
One Norfolk Southern track obstructed by the Friday derailment was back in use by 3 a.m. Saturday, the other by 1 p.m., Husband said.
Customers can track their boxes on the UPS Web site, using shipping numbers.