(The following article by Joe Nelson was posted on the San Bernardino County Sun website on August 29.)
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — A stretch of San Timoteo Canyon Road that motorists use to access Moreno Valley from Redlands will remain closed until at least Thursday while workers clear seven locomotives that derailed over the weekend.
“It’s going to be Thursday night at the earliest,” said Officer Chris Blondon of the California Highway Patrol’s Beaumont substation. “It was described to me as a major construction site.”
Seven of nine locomotives bound for Colton from Tucson derailed about 9:20 p.m. Saturday between Redlands Boulevard and Live Oak Canyon Road. Two of the 335,000-pound engines stayed on the tracks, but two tipped to the north into a ditch and the other five toppled south toward San Timoteo Canyon Road, officials said.
Three of the locomotives were destroyed, said Mark Davis, spokesman for Union Pacific Railroad, which owns eight of the nine cars. The ninth car is owned by Canadian National Railway.
Both the eastbound and westbound rail lines were open and operational Monday. One line was cleared about 2:25 p.m. Sunday, while the other was cleared about 4:25 a.m. Monday, Davis said.
“The rail traffic’s moving. What the team is doing now is preparing and removing the locomotives that have to be moved by tractor-trailer. They’ll have to be trucked out of the area,” Davis said.
And while railroad traffic was able to move through the canyon, motorists who traverse the canyon daily to get to Moreno Valley will have to take alternate routes this week, Blondon said.
Residents living in the canyon, however, will be allowed in, Blondon said.
Four sidebooms counter-balanced bulldozers equipped with cranes have already uprighted two of the locomotives and will be used to upright the other five. The locomotives will then be towed out of the canyon and taken to Union Pacific’s rail yard in Colton, Davis said.
In order to access the two locomotives that tipped into the ditch, a portion of the railroad tracks will need to be covered with rocks so the sidebooms can move over them and access the toppled engines, Davis said.
The cause of the derailment is under investigation, Davis said. The cost of the damage and repair work has not been determined.