STOCKTON, Calif. — A train derailment broke the Sunday morning quiet of a north Stockton neighborhood as rail cars rumbled off their tracks and screeched to a halt, dumping thousands of gallons of paraffin wax aside Union Pacific tracks just north of Hammer Lane, the Stockton Record reported.
Mike Furtney, a spokesman for Union Pacific Railroad, said the freight train was on its way from Roseville to Stockton at about 9:30 a.m. when the derailment occurred. Of the 118 cars traveling, 50 were empty and 68 carried loads. No one was injured.
The sound of the derailment shuddered homes like a strong wind, said those who lived in the 8800 block of Fox Creek Drive, about 500 yards from the tracks.
“It woke us up out of our sleep,” said Chrystal Hopkins, 20, who lives in a home on Fox Creek Drive, just west of the derailment. “It felt like an earthquake, and then all of a sudden, they said, ‘It’s a derailment.’ ”
The train derailed in two separate portions, sending about 20 cars off the tracks just north of Hammer Lane. About a quarter mile north of that scene, five more rail cars jumped the line.
The Stockton Fire Department responded with six engines, two trucks and a hazardous- materials team to help evaluate whether any of the rail cars were leaking toxic materials.
The San Joaquin County Office of Emergency Services also responded at Stockton Fire’s request, said Robert Lopez, hazardous-materials specialist with OES.
“It was feared that that there was a rail car with hydrochloric acid that was leaking, but that turned out not to be the case,” Lopez said. “It can create … very irritating fumes. You don’t want to breathe that. We would have had to evacuate people.”
Instead, officials found the only car leaking contained a nontoxic material — molten paraffin wax.
“It’s nontoxic and nonhazardous, but it’s a mess to clean up,” Furtney said. Another derailed tanker previously had been filled with anhydrous ammonia, a hazardous material used in agricultural and industrial industries, as well as metallurgy and refrigeration. At the time of the accident, that tanker was empty.
Officials late Sunday had not yet determined what caused the derailment.
As emergency crews responded to the scene, Lopez said, officials were forced to scoot curious bystanders away from the potentially hazardous site. Children on bikes and adults carrying infants scurried to the scene to catch a glimpse of the crumbled rail cars.
“If that would have been a compressed gas or flammable liquid and had that exploded, they could have been engulfed,” Lopez said. “Its really hard to get a hold on security when the area is so large.”
Fox Creek Drive resident Cecilia Johnson, 19, said that dozens of trains travel daily past the neighborhood.
“It’s kind of dangerous having such hazardous materials so near a neighborhood,” Johnson said.
“But what else can you do?”
Crews worked into the night to restore the tracks, which Furtney said will likely be closed until late today.