(The following article by Andrew Edwards was posted on the San Bernardino County Sun website on February 20.)
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — A flatcar on a Union Pacific train derailed Friday near an area where a 2005 derailment prompted an evacuation of a mobile home park.
This time around, however, the situation was much less serious.
“We didn’t get called on anything,” San Bernardino Fire Department spokesman Tom Rubio said.
A single flatcar, part of a 120-car train, derailed near Foothill Boulevard and Macy Street at about 9 a.m., Union Pacific spokesman James Barnes said.
The train, he said, was not carrying any hazardous materials and there were no injuries. The train was ready to start moving again at about 10:35 a.m.
The derailment, Barnes said, was caused by an accumulation of slag around one of the flatcar’s wheels.
In June, a much more serious derailment occurred in the same area. Hundreds of people were evacuated after 13 cars, two of which contained poisonous chlorine, went off the track.
Gerald Jimenez, 43, lives at the Meridian Terrace mobile home park that is adjacent to the railroad tracks where Friday’s derailment occurred. He said he saw the flatcar that derailed and remembered the incident in June.
“It jumped the track,” he said about Friday’s incident. “Both wheels jumped off the track.”
Jimenez said some of his neighbors felt ill after last year’s derailment, although Union Pacific officials said no hazardous chemicals leaked.
“That was horrible,” he said. “It was burning the eyes, burning the throat. The kids had sore throats for days.”
Barnes said he was not yet employed by Union Pacific at the time of the 2005 derailment and was not familiar with its circumstances.
San Bernardino firefighters were not called to Friday’s derailment. Last year, it was much different, Rubio recalled.
“It was a huge effort,” Rubio said. “A combined effort with our department, the county’s hazmat guys and the railroad.”
Statistics from the Federal Railroad Administration showed that between January and November 2005, there were 133 train derailments in California.