(The Peoria Journal Star posted the following article on its website on March 7.)
EDELSTEIN, Ill. — Union Pacific Railroad crews were expected to work through the night to reopen a rail line this morning after a 48-car derailment early Thursday.
Though no one was injured, about 6,500 tons of coal was spilled when four dozen of the train’s 117 cars went off the rails shortly before 4 a.m., crushing together side by side in a rural area seven miles north of Peoria.
The spilled coal posed no hazards and crews will be cleaning it up over the next few days, railroad spokesman Mark Davis said. The cause of the derailment had not been determined Thursday.
The pile-up, about two miles west of Illinois Route 40, was on empty farmland about 300 yards south of Illinois Route 90. Traffic along Route 90 was diverted because the train’s remaining cars blocked the roadway.
The derailed cars were expected to be removed overnight and the rail line open by 8 a.m. today. Employees planned to replace about 500 feet of track, Davis said.
The train had been hauling coal from the state of Wyoming to a site south of Peoria when the first car behind the second of two engines derailed, triggering the accident. Though the load was headed for a coal-fired electric generation plant, it was unclear Thursday exactly which one.
Each train car carries between 135 and 140 tons of coal.
According to Davis, that stretch of railroad track sees about six freight trains daily.
“Anytime even one wheel is on the ground is a concern,” he said.
In November 1999, 20 of 115 cars in a train headed down the same rail line, loaded with coal and headed for Pekin, derailed and blocked the intersection of Route 40 and Route 90 for about two hours. That train, also owned by Union Pacific, was headed to Pekin from Black Powder Basin, Wyo.
In that crash, the train’s conductor and another railroad worker said they saw sparks coming from the tracks just before the derailment.