Diesel pumped from derailed train engines to prevent spill

KETTLE FALLS, Wash. – Workers on Thursday were removing several thousand gallons of diesel fuel from two railroad engines that derailed with a boxcar near Kettle Falls where a landslide undermined the track.

State Ecology Department spokeswoman Joy Redfield-Wilder said the engines ended up about 300 feet from Lake Roosevelt, but there was no significant spill.

The Stevens County sheriff’s office said two Kettle Falls International Railways employees suffered minor injuries Wednesday as the engines fell down an embankment.

The engines may contain as much as 4,000 gallons of diesel.

Fans can’t get enough of ‘Twilight’ series site

FORKS, Wash. – The “Twilight” tourism bonanza shows no signs of abating in Forks, an old logging town on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula that’s won new fame as the setting for a teen vampire fantasy.

Marcia Bingham of the Forks Chamber of Commerce said more than 16,000 people passed through the town’s visitor center in July alone, doubling June’s number, and in one month nearly equaling 2008’s total of 18,485 people.

She noted that in the “old days” the visitor center focused mainly on teaching people about logging and coordinating tours of local natural resources. These days it’s all about vampires and werewolves. Logging tours have been cut back from three a week to one.