(The following article by Hurst Laviana and Lori O’Toole Buselt was posted on the Wichita Eagle website on September 21.)
WICHITA, Kan. — Freight trains were rolling through downtown Wichita again Monday after a 10-car derailment over the weekend shut down the Old Town tracks for more than 24 hours.
Steve Forsberg, a Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway spokesman, said investigators were still trying to determine the cause of the derailment, but he said they are focusing on a possible problem with the condition of the elevated tracks.
Those tracks are inspected three times a week, he said, and officials had inspected them Saturday, a day before the derailment.
Carl Gipson, city of Wichita special project engineer, said planned improvements that could begin late this year will make the tracks safer.
The $98.9 million Central Rail Corridor project involves replacing all the lines between Waterman and 18th Street and elevating train tracks at Central, Murdock and 13th so drivers can pass underneath trains rather than stopping and waiting for them to pass.
The city project is out for bids now, and the city and railroad are negotiating an agreement about the relationship the two groups will have during construction.
The tracks will be of the highest standard, Gipson said, with new foundations and longer ribbons of steel welded together — rather than short pieces the tracks have now.
“It’s bound to improve safety,” he said.
He compared the old tracks to an old car: “There’s still something more likely to go wrong with it than a brand-new car.”
The project will include two elevated tracks, as well as taller and wider openings for traffic on First and Second streets. Completion is scheduled for May 2007.
The city expects to pay about $15 million for the project. Funds also will come from the Union Pacific Railroad, the state and the federal government, said Gipson, who has been working on the project for five years.
Sunday’s accident occurred at about 10:20 a.m. just south of the Douglas Street overpass. Several streets — including Douglas, First and Second — were closed Sunday as a precaution, but they were all reopened by Monday morning.
Forsberg said the integrity of the bridge over Douglas was checked by engineers before trains were allowed to start moving over it again.
No one was injured in the derailment.
Forsberg said the northbound train, which was carrying double-stacked shipping boxes from Los Angeles to Chicago, was traveling at 29 mph when the derailment occurred.
He said trains passing through Wichita experienced delays of 24 to 36 hours as railroad crews cleaned up the damage. One of the derailed cars landed on top of an old rail line canopy used by Cox Communications as covered parking and as a base for three large satellite dishes.