(The Southern Illinoisian posted the following article by Caleb Hale on its website on October 21.)
ANNA, Ill. — An accident at midnight Sunday left a train’s tank car leaking nonlethal materials, officials said.
The 128-car Canadian National train was heading north through Anna a few minutes after midnight when it was forced to make the emergency stop along the Main Street railroad crossing, Anna fire Chief Jim Cross said. Doing so caused one of the tank cars, holding liquid fertilizer, to buckle and crack, causing a leak.
Cross said the fertilizer was not dangerous so there was no need to evacuate the area.
Jack Burke, a Canadian National spokesman in Chicago, said the train did not derail. Rather, the tank cracked.
No injuries were reported, and fire officials had the railway clear by 3:30 a.m. The Anna Fire Department was the only department called. The city held the tank car Monday near the accident site while Canadian National crews repaired the damage.
Burke said the train engineer made an emergency stop because of an apparent railroad signal failure.
Cross said the engineer told him he thought there might have been a train heading toward him from the opposite direction. There was no oncoming train.
Burke said a dark or a completely red signal means something is on the tracks ahead. If that happens, he said it is standard procedure to make an emergency stop.
“The engineer did the absolute correct thing,” Burke said.
An emergency stop can take a train between a third and a quarter of a mile, depending on the train’s speed. That is a far shorter distance than a standard stop, Burke said.
Burke said CN workers had the area cleaned up by Monday afternoon. He said the liquid fertilizer was nonhazardous, and he wasn’t sure if the train had any dangerous materials.