(The following article by Angie Leventis was posted on the News Tribune website on September 22.)
TACOMA, Wash. — The Tacoma Dome Amtrak station was evacuated Saturday evening when a freight car began leaking ethanol on surrounding tracks.
At about 5:45 p.m., railroad workers noticed the highly flammable material spilling from a valve in the lower part of a black tank car at a rate of a gallon every five minutes. Tacoma Fire Department Capt. Jolene Davis said the cause of the spill was unknown Saturday night.
The leak was near two other freight cars, and Davis said preventing a fire was her top concern.
“It is a flammable substance and it could easily ignite,” Davis said. “In this case, there were no respiratory concerns … but we still had to keep the area clear.”
Davis said about 40 firefighters and officials from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tried to close the valve or patch it with a putty compound. Davis said she didn’t know how long repairs would take or when the trains would resume running. An investigation into the spill’s cause was continuing, she said.
Near the station, the spill delayed a 6:13 p.m. train to Portland. About 15 passengers waited across the street for several hours, complaining that they were hungry, cold and irritated at the wait.
“This ruined my weekend,” said Mark Duell, 24, who was planning to visit his girlfriend in Vancouver, Wash.
Duell, a Fort Lewis soldier, plans to leave for Iraq in late October or mid-November.
“This would have been one of the last times I got to see her,” Duell said.
Beth Hiller, 64, of Portland, planned to take the train home after visiting relatives in Tacoma. “Now I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Hiller said.
Amtrak ticket clerk Tony Jones said passengers who didn’t want to wait for the train would receive full refunds. Late Saturday evening, there was no information on when service would be restored.