COLFAX, Calif. — The primary rail route through the Sierra is not expected to reopen until noon today after a Union Pacific freight train derailment late Sunday night left 16 overturned rail cars blocking the tracks, the Sacramento Bee reported.
Union Pacific officials said an eastbound train traveling at 14 mph left the tracks on a tight curve a few miles east of Colfax around 11 p.m. Sunday.
Though no one was injured, 21 cars derailed, with 16 of them tipping over onto the westbound tracks.
Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said the westbound tracks are expected to be cleared by 6 a.m. today and the eastbound tracks by noon. The cause of the accident is still under investigation, he said.
Davis said that all freight traffic through the Sierra has been diverted to a secondary line through the Feather River Canyon.
“We’re pretty fortunate that we’ve got an alternative route nearby,” he said.
Amtrak’s westbound California Zephyr service, which runs daily on the UP line between Emeryville and Chicago, was stopped outside Colfax and the passengers were bused to their destinations, Amtrak officials said.
In May, another freight train left the tracks near Colfax, damaging six rail cars and spilling fertilizer along the tracks.
Federal Railroad Administration officials, however, said there didn’t appear to be any problem with the rail line in that area. FRA spokesman Warren Flatau said the May accident was due to a mechanical failure related to the suspension system on the train.
“At this point, my people in the field didn’t give me anything that would indicate that the territory there was especially problematic,” he said.
While crews cleared the tracks on Monday, a UP police officer guarded entry to the site, which was accessible only by a winding dirt road.
Crews from Union Pacific and Jim Dobbas Inc., a Newcastle-based company that specializes in re-railing trains, worked around the clock to clean up the wreck.
In hard hats and fluorescent vests, they first set the wheels, which had come loose from the cars, back on the tracks.
They then chained hooks from large yellow cranes onto each derailed car and lifted it upright so that it dangled a few feet above the tracks.
With the metal train wheels glinting under the hot sun, the crane operators lowered the black cylindrical car onto the pin that protrudes from the wheels.
About 100 feet down the mountain stood two upright cars carrying loads of Sierra Pacific lumber. A couple of mangled packages of the lumber lay in the shade of a tree next to the tracks, forming a makeshift rest bench for the crews, who sipped Squirt sodas from a cooler.
An official from WorldCom fielded calls on his walkie-talkie and made sure no digging took place on a cable that WorldCom runs between the tracks.
The FRA’s Flatau said Union Pacific has until the end of October to file a report on Sunday’s crash.