(The following story by William Johnson appeared on The Daily World website on February 19, 2010.)
OPELOUSAS, La. — La. 749, known locally as Railroad Avenue in Opelousas, remains closed today as crews continue to remove tons of rocks and railcars spilled at the side of the tracks near Ventura Foods.
Late Tuesday, a Union Pacific freight train derailed just beyond the La. 749 crossing, with 10 cars carrying gravel being knocked off the main east-west Union Pacific line.
“It is going slow but we will be done by tomorrow,” predicted Steve Slack on Thursday afternoon.
Slack, with the Union Pacific office in Baton Rouge, was overseeing a crew of several dozen workers operating three large rail-capable crane trucks that were slowly lifting first the wheels and then the cars back onto the tracks.
“We have recovered three cars so far, with the fourth on the way,” Slack said about noon. “It is not that bad. There is not much damage to the cars. We are just taking it slow and easy. Safety is our main concern.”
The track in this area runs through a residential neighborhood, and Christian Bryant, who lives adjacent to the tracks where the derailment occurred, said it was no big deal.
He was at home when the derailment took place about 8 p.m.
“I didn’t hear anything; I didn’t feel anything. That was the funny part,” said Bryant, who added that he only learned of the derailment when he got a call from his mother.
He said his mother has lived in the neighborhood for 50 years and this is the first derailment in the area she is aware of.
He said the track is heavily used, with a large freight train coming through about every two hours — morning, noon and night.
“I feel secure. If it falls off, it has got a long way to go to get to my house,” Bryant said of the roughly 20-yard strip between his house and the tracks. “I’m not scared.”
Railroad officials said the exact cause of the derailment is still under investigation, but it appears the load in the freight cars was off center, causing them to become unbalanced.
Raquel Espinoza-Williams, Southern regional director of public relations for Union Pacific, said no one was injured and the company has opened a formal investigation.
As for the track, she said it was put back into operation within about 12 hours once the fallen cars were pushed off the right-of-way.
“This is a main line. It gets a lot of traffic,” Espinoza-Williams said.