(The following story by Jeannine Koranda appeared on the Tri-City Herald website on April 21.)
HERMISTON, Ore. — Gary Turner wondered why the train engineer was laying on the whistle as the engine ran by on the tracks bordering his pasture at the end of Feedville Road south of Hermiston on Thursday morning.
“I thought why in the world is he doing that? Is he trying to wake everyone up?” Turner said.
Then he saw the runaway engine from Union Pacific’s Hinkle train switching yard plow into a long line of empty coal hauling cars that were parked on the track, derailing cars and tearing up the railroad’s mainline.
“It kept coming and coming and peeled those cars right off,” he said.
The unmanned, remote-controlled engine jumped the tracks, kept pushing the empty coal cars, then ran onto a railroad access road, finally stopping when its front end plowed into an embankment.
The derailment gouged open the engine’s 3,500-gallon fuel tank, spilling diesel that spread about 100 feet down a gravel grade just east of the Lamb Weston plant. The 113 empty coal hauling cars the engine hit were pushed down the tracks so they were blocking Westland Road.
In addition to derailing 13 cars, including the engine, the accident tore up about 300 feet of track on Union Pacific’s mainline between Portland and La Grande, said Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis. He expected the track to be repaired and reopened Thursday evening.
Davis said the crash did not cause any delays and trains were rerouted.
Hermiston Fire Chief Jim Stearns said the fire department got a call at about 8:30 a.m. reporting there was an out of control unmanned engine that might hit other train cars near Cottonwood Bend south of town.
Firefighters were already on the way about 15 minutes later when they were told the crash had happened. When they arrived, there was a small fire under the engine that Stearns quickly put out with a handheld fire extinguisher from his truck. There were no injuries.
Firefighters put down plastic sheeting to catch the diesel, spilled oil and leaking hydraulic fluid, Stearns said. They also tried to soak up some of the fuel that had spread down the road.
Stearns said they were able to collect a couple hundred gallons of fuel, including what was pumped out of the broken fuel tank.
A hazardous materials cleanup crew was expected to come in later and clean up fuel that soaked into the ground, Stearns said. The Umatilla River runs nearby so keeping the fuel out of the water was a big concern, he said
Turner, whose 140 acres of pasture straddles the tracks, said he’d never seen a crash on the line in the 30 years he’s lived there.
Davis said the unmanned engine had been moving various cars, including two full coal cars, around the Hinkle switching yard when operators lost control of it. The Hinkle yard is about five miles from the crash scene.
Davis said railroad officials didn’t know yet what caused the engine to go out of control. He said it would have been going 10 miles per hour or less in the yard but didn’t know how fast it was going when it collided with the empty rail cars.