(The following story by Mark Havnes appeared on The Salt Lake Tribune website on January 6.)
CEDAR CITY — Whenever a Union Pacific train derails within 300 miles of Ogden, workers with Durbano Metals Inc. roll into action.
That’s what they did Saturday after 36 of 97 cars derailed during a blinding snowstorm 35 miles south of Delta in southwestern Utah’s Millard County. The Union Pacific freight train was hauling consumer goods from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles.
“At all hours of the day or night, including holidays, when we get a call from a railroad manager of a derailment, we find out how many cars are involved, load up as much equipment as needed and head to the site,” Dennis Durbano said Monday from his Ogden office.
He said the family-owned salvage business — launched 20 years ago by his father — has a contract with Union Pacific to clear train derailments in the region.
The company’s crews went right to work Saturday and, with help from railroad workers, removed and replaced the damaged tracks. Durbano explained that the tracks are connected in panel-like sections for quick repairs.
“Our priority is getting the trains running again,” he said, “then we can go back and start the cleanup of the site.”
Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley said Monday from the railroad’s headquarters in Omaha, Neb., that a combination of “excessive snow buildup in a [rail] switch and a defective wheel” caused the accident.
Bromley said the train — consisting mainly of flatbed rail cars hauling freight trailers — was traveling about 50 mph when the accident occurred at 9:50 a.m. The track, which is used by about 20 freight trains a day, reopened Saturday at 5:20 p.m.
Neither of the two crew members aboard the train was injured.
Bromley said no hazardous materials spilled in the accident, which took place in a remote stretch where the tracks parallel state Route 257. He added that no wreckage blocked the highway.
By Monday afternoon, wheels, axles and twisted wreckage still littered about a half-mile of snow-covered sagebrush along the tracks. A few curious cows watched as workers, braving freezing cold, cleared the wreckage using bulldozers, backhoes and cranes. Any salvageable cargo will be trucked back to Salt Lake City and loaded on another train.
“The crews did a good job opening up the line as quick as they did,” said Keith Kerns, a damage prevention and control manager for Union Pacific. “It will still take time before it is completely cleaned up.”
Durbano said his company sent 18 workers to the scene and that it could take about three weeks to finish the job. “The quicker the better.”
(Robert Cook contributed to this story.)