(The following story by Jo Dee Black appeared on the Great Falls Tribune website on June 24, 2010.)
GREAT FALLS, Mont. — A rock slide 30 miles east of Libby buried two BNSF Railway freight cars and derailed 14 others Wednesday morning, shutting down the railroad’s mainline through northern Montana.
Traffic is being rerouted to other lines, including the line through Great Falls.
“That line has between 30 to 35 trains daily,” said Gus Melonas, spokesman for BNSF, said. “We will have it reopened Thursday.”
Railroad crews finished work to reopen the Great Falls line Wednesday after two locomotives at the end of a 125-car coal train derailed Tuesday morning. In that derailment, a rain-soaked rail bed sank 3 feet, causing the incident.
The train that derailed Wednesday had 54 cars and two locomotives. It was carrying freight, including soybean oil, corn sweetener and frozen meats. One of the cars buried by rock contains frozen turkeys. The remaining derailed cars are empty.
The slide came off a 140-foot cliff and hit the train at the 41st car. There were no injuries.
“There are 6,000 cubic yards of rock on the track, 20- to 40-feet deep,” Melonas said.