(Chicago radio station WBBM posted the following report on its website on December 2.)
CHICAGO — Crews Tuesday morning were working to right a derailed freight train, which is blocking tracks shared with Metra commuter trains.
Metra general road master Al Bobby said the commuter rail service had expected to start moving the derailed cars from the tracks near 1600 S. Clark St. at around 1 a.m. and planned to run the first train through sometime between 5:30 a.m. and 6 a.m.
The derailment was not expected to affect the morning rush hour, Bobby said. He added with a laugh, “time is on our side.”
A spokesman for Canadian National, a rail, truck and communications conglomerate, said his organization was pushing for 4 a.m. as the time when the cars could be set back onto the tracks.
A crew from the Hulcher company, a heavy-equipment firm, brought cranes to the scene to return the train to the tracks, said the CN spokesman, who did not want his name used.
Bobby said that in the unlikely event a crane should break down, Metra as a last resort could move an oil tanker, the only one blocking the Metra tracks, and “walk trains through.”
The train derailed at around 8:45 p.m. Monday, as it was switching to another set of tracks, police News Affairs Officer Carlos Herrera said.
Officials did not know the cause of the derailment as of about 11 p.m. Monday, according the CN spokesman.
The train was going from Markham to the Glen yard at 51st Street and Harlem Avenue when it derailed, the CN official said at the scene.
A still-and-box alarm was called for the accident at 8:51 p.m. Monday, fire department Cmdr. Lorenzo Vazquez said. The three boxcars and one tanker that left the rails did not tip over, Vazquez said. A foam truck was sent as a precaution, but there was no fire and a test for hazardous materials was negative, he said. The alarm was struck at 9:36 p.m., he said.
The derailment blocked the tracks south of the LaSalle Street Station and prevented a Metra Rock Island District train from leaving on time, Metra spokesman Tom Miller said. The train had been scheduled to depart at 8:45 p.m.
The cars that derailed were a boxcar, a “stone car,” an oil tanker containing non-hazardous materials, and a “ballast stone” car, according to the CN spokesman. He said that these were only the types of cars involved and that he did not know their cargo.
The rear stone car and the oil car were completely off the rails where tracks used by Metra intersect with tracks used by CN, said the representative, who declined to give his name. The accident occurred not as the train was switching tracks but “when it hit the diamond,” an X where the sets of tracks cross, the spokesman said. In his words, it was “a straight shot.”
Buses took Metra riders between the LaSalle Street Station, at 414 S. LaSalle St., and the next scheduled stop, at Gresham, at 820 W. 87th St., he said. Clark Street was closed from south of Roosevelt Road to around 18th Street to accommodate emergency vehicles, a Central District captain said.
Metra police were investigating, he said, but Chicago police officers were also at the scene.
Although Metra trains were blocked, a CN engine was able to cross the overpass — slowly — at 11:06 p.m. Monday.