(The following report appeared on the Daily Inter Lake website on April 21.)
ESSEX, Mont. — A train derailed near Essex on Tuesday, blocking rail traffic in both directions and scrambling crews to clean up spilled corn before it attracted grizzly bears.
“There were no injuries,” said Gus Melonas, spokesman for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad in Seattle.
Initial reports said 29 cars had derailed, but it was not known how much corn had spilled. The cause of the derailment was also unknown, Melonas said.
Four locomotives had been pulling 110 cars filled with corn, from Sioux City, Iowa, to Pasco, Wash., when the train derailed at approximately 11:45 a.m.
Thirty people were expected to work overnight to clear the tracks, and Melonas said service could be restored within 24 hours. Amtrak planned to bus its rail passengers between Shelby and Spokane in the meantime.
Large bulldozers were brought in to push the derailed cars away from the track, and vacuums were used to clean up the spilled corn before any grizzly bears would get a chance to feed on it.
After similar derailments in the same area in the late 1980s, crews simply plowed over the corn, covering it with soil. But it was later discovered that this practice endangered grizzly bears, which would gather to eat after smelling the corn as it fermented.
A number of bears were struck and killed by passing trains and cars, prompting the creation of the Great Northern Environmental Stewardship area, a program involving a variety of government agencies and private partners.
GNESA developed, among other things, protocols for responding to such spills so as to minimize the impact on grizzlies.
Tuesday’s derailment happened in the same location where a train was struck in late January by two separate avalanches.