(The following article by Karen Ogden was posted on the Great Falls Tribune website on September 28.)
SHELBY, Mont. — Salvage efforts continued Tuesday in a remote area south of Shelby where a grain train derailed a day earlier, spilling tons of grain.
The route, which runs from Laurel to Shelby and on to Sweet Grass, was reopened at about 3 p.m., as crews continued to vacuum up wheat and salvage wrecked cars alongside the tracks.
“There have been some backups,” said Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway spokesman Gus Melonas. “However, because this line does not accommodate high volumes, we have been fortunate to continue with the majority of our customer service.”
The line handles roughly six freight trains a day.
However, the first train scheduled to travel the reopened line Tuesday evening was a collection of private, vintage railcars returning from the annual convention of the American Association of Private Railroad Car Owners in Missoula. The vintage train left Shelby at 6 p.m. It is scheduled to leave Great Falls this morning and stop in Miles City tonight, before continuing its return journey to Chicago.
Although the derailment delayed the train by six hours, it could have been worse, said Roger Verbeeren, of Saukvillage, Ill., who owns four of the vintage cars.
“You don’t like to see any wrecks at all because potentially that could happen anywhere at any time, and we’re glad no one was injured,” he said.
Crews equipped with giant vacuum machines had cleaned up roughly a quarter of the spilled grain by Tuesday afternoon, Melonas said. However BNSF does not yet have estimates of the tonnage spilled.
The railroad initially reported that 42 cars were derailed but since has revised the count to 36. Each car held 120 tons of wheat.
Workers were able to put three of the cars back on the rails and move them to Shelby for mechanical inspection, Melonas said.
Most of the remaining cars will be scrapped on site during the next three to four weeks. BNSF will hire a private contractor for the work, Melonas said.
The 60-member salvage team that initially responded to the accident was reduced to 25 by Tuesday afternoon. Over the next few days the crew will be whittled to roughly 10 workers who will stay on site for three to four weeks.
The railroad hopes to salvage much of the wheat for milling, although spilled grain is often downgraded and sold as feed.
The train was bound for Kalama, Wash. with a load from Selby, S.D.