(The following story by Chuck Lentz appeared on the Grand Isle Independent website on April 3.)
HASTINGS, Kan. — A derailment of 40 loaded coal cars in northern Kansas last Sunday caused problems last week as far up the line as Hastings, where trains were backed up all week.
The derailment caused the destruction of a 280-foot bridge spanning the creek, into which 38 of the cars fell. More than three days were required to construct a temporary “shoo-fly” track around the derailment and ruined bridge. It opened at 3 a.m. Thursday, according to UP spokesman John Bromley.
“It just opened early yesterday and we’re starting to get trains going again,” Bromley said at midday Friday.
Throughout the week, trains could be seen sitting along the line skirting the north edge of Hastings. On Friday trains sat backed up for five miles west and north of the city.
The derailment occurred about 12 miles northwest of Topeka, Kan., on Union Pacific’s heavily traveled two-track line between Topeka and the UP main line at Gibbon. Most of the trains on the 220-mile line are coal trains going to and from the Powder River coal field in northeastern Wyoming.
During the week the railroad detoured as many trains as possible over other UP lines and lines of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, its major competitor.
Bromley said UP hopes to have a new bridge built and in use by mid-May.
When a bridge is destroyed, getting trains rolling again is “going to take longer than out in the country somewhere,” Bromley said.