ALLENTON, Wis. — A crane was brought in to help clear nearly three dozen freight cars that derailed, some of them catching fire, a wire service reported.
A 107-car Canadian National Railway train carrying hazardous materials derailed Monday, sending 34 cars off the track.
One of the cars that derailed was carrying potash, a moderately hazardous chemical, said Allenton Assistant Fire Chief Ron Naab. Crews contained the chemical from spilling into a nearby creek, he said.
There were no reported injuries.
Three cars caught on fire, but they were carrying lumber, waxes and plastics, not hazardous materials, Naab said. A fourth car holding potato products was smoldering.
“It’ll probably take two days” to clean up the jumbled cars, Washington County Sheriff Jack Theusch said Tuesday. Workers must also rebuild part of a recently constructed concrete bridge that was damaged in the derailment, authorities said.
The northbound Canadian National freight derailed about 2:30 p.m. Monday about 40 miles northwest of Milwaukee.
Three men from a nearby auto body shop were evacuated as a precaution. The nearest homes are a half-mile away because the area is marshy, Naab said, adding, “There was not much to be evacuated except for deer and ducks.”
Authorities said the train was not speeding and the derailment was probably caused by either a track flaw or a mechanical failure on a car. The Federal Railroad Administration was investigating.
Fifteen of the train’s cars were carrying hazardous materials, including peroxide and toluene, but authorities said those were not near the derailed cars.
Eight people from the Allenton Fire Department were called back from Lomira, where they were helping fight a blaze at the huge Quad/Graphics printing plant that has been burning since Friday night.
“To have two fires like this within 15 miles of each other is something else,” Naab said.