(The Associated Press circulated the following story on September 20.)
KELSO, Wash. — More than two dozen cars derailed as two freight trains passed each other just north of this Cowlitz County town, and crews were scrambling Saturday to clear the tracks so Amtrak service in the region could resume by nightfall.
No one was injured and no materials were spilled in the accident about 6 p.m. Friday, but the accident left a pile of cars in a wooded area near Ostrander, said Burlington Northern Santa Fe spokesman Gus Melonas in Seattle.
Amtrak passenger trains also use the affected lines, and Amtrak passengers were being bused around the site early Saturday. Track crews had one of the tracks open by 1 p.m. Saturday and the second line was cleared by 7 p.m., Melonas said.
One of the trains was operated by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company, the other by Union Pacific.
Twenty empty cars from the southbound Union Pacific train derailed and six cars from the northbound Burlington Northern Santa Fe train left the tracks. Four of those were empty and two contained furniture, Melonas said.
The accident was under investigation by BNSF, he said.
“At this point, we don’t know who derailed who,” UP spokesman John Bromley told The Daily News of Longview.
Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Captain Mark Nelson said some cars tipped over while others stayed upright, but were zig-zagged alongside the tracks.
“Some of them are stacked up like pick-up sticks,” Nelson said. One of the trains was traveling at about 5 mph and the other at about 25 mph, he said.
People living or working near the tracks heard the accident and scrambled to see what had happened.
“We all heard a hell of a screeching and a hollering, but we didn’t know what it was,” said Gale Levang, who works at a nearby trucking company. “I didn’t pay much attention to it because it wasn’t a passenger train, just a freight train.”