(The following story by Christine S. Moyer appeared on the Fox Valley Villages Sun website on December 20.)
AURORA, Ill. — Trains are running again on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks on Aurora’s near West Side.
Crews worked through the night Thursday and into Friday at the site where a freight train derailed along Jericho Road early Thursday.
Steve Forsberg, BNSF spokesman, said the train track re-opened for service at 9:40 a.m. Friday, after crews worked through the night leveling the ground and laying new planks and tracks.
Crews spent the day Friday cleaning up the containers that spilled off the track. Forsberg anticipated that the crossing at Terry Avenue and Jericho Road would open Friday night.
There were no injuries in the derailment that occurred around 3:30 a.m. Thursday, as a 52-car freight train, carrying truck trailers and containers, rumbled through Aurora, bound for Seattle.
Ten of the cars derailed, crashing through residents’ sheds and fences, even knocking down a tree, before coming to a stop in a few Jericho Road backyards.
Three of those tipped cars were labeled for hazardous materials, because a portion of their contents included a type of commercial soap, Forsberg said. The soap, he stressed, was not a threat.