(The following story by Sara Cunningham appeared on the Louisville Courier-Journal website on June 25.)
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The track in Jeffersontown where 10 Norfolk Southern train cars derailed Friday afternoon reopened yesterday.
The track was reopened at 7:10 a.m., said Robin Chapman, a Norfolk Southern spokesman.
No injuries were reported in the derailment, but businesses and some residents within a half-mile of the site were evacuated for about five hours as a precaution.
Seven derailed cars were loaded, including four carrying the chemical phenol, which a rail official described as a white crystalline solid that can burn the skin on contact but is not airborne.
Two of the cars were loaded automobile carriers and another was a hopper car loaded with plastic pellets, officials said.
The cause of the derailment of the 108-car, three-locomotive train is under investigation, Chapman said. The inquiry could take several weeks, he said.
One witness had reported hearing a strange noise coming from the rail line just before the derailment.
The National Transportation Safety Board was not called out, Chapman said.
“There is a certain threshold you have to meet in terms of damage, death or injury, and I do not believe we have met that,” Chapman said.
“We were very fortunate,” Jeffersontown police Chief Rick Sanders said. Phenol is used mainly in the production of resins that are used in the automotive and appliance industries, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fact sheet.