(Memphis television station WMC-TV posted the following story on its website on August 20.)
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A railcar that was dangerously dangling over a Midtown roadway is gone. But it could be days before we know how much damage may or may not have been done. Union Pacific Railroad paid to have crews work around the clock to fix and move the train cars and to do repair work on the bridge. The part of McLean may be open now, but there’s still more work to do.
“The derailment occurred right here at this switch crossing thing,” said Bart Russell is a field engineer for MCI. He came to check up on fiber-optic cables running along the tracks. The cables are fine, but the track is twisted and broken.
“Just imagine all that weight rolling off the rail. It’s gonna twist it,” he said.
Russell was here not long after the rails bent and the train nearly toppled, spilling 250 gallons of diesel fuel and concrete from the bridge to the street below.
“As the rail runs along its normal path, the cleats look normal. But as the rail starts to warp you can see that its pulled spikes out all the way up and down the tracks.”
Union Pacific now says they’ll have to remove the entire section of track and replace it. The three engines are actually three of the four that were involved in the derailment. It’s a little bit tricky but the bridge area was obviously the area with the greatest risk of danger. This is where the engine threatened to fall through onto the street below. The edge of the wall is where it crumbled when the engine leaned over the edge. In fact, we’re told by engineers that had these walls not been so close here, the engine might have been able to fall through onto the street below.
UP will have to repair parts of the bridge before the track can be replaced and reopened. Union Pacific says the diesel fuel that spilled here did not make it to the storm drain. But they are committed to paying for any damage that resulted from the derailment.