Stevens County Rail Line Reopens After Derailment

The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway reopened its track here at 10:30 Wednesday morning after working through the night to clear away the wreckage of 15 derailed cars.

Spokesman Gus Melonas said railroad officials hadn’t determined what caused the cars to leave the tracks 1-1/4 miles south of this little Stevens County town as the train headed south at 21 mph. Nor had the damages been totaled.

The train consisted of five locomotives, 42 loaded cars and 40 empty cars. The first 20 or so cars were able to proceed on to Spokane after the derailment, and most of the rest finished the trip Wednesday after the line was repaired.

Melonas said two derailed cars full of once-molten sulfur were re-railed and sent on to Spokane. The sulfur was cool and solid when the cars derailed, and didn’t spill when the cars left the track.

A cargo of dry fertilizer also didn’t spill, when its car partially left the tracks, but a load of sawdust and two loads of logs were dumped.

Public safety officials worried most about two derailed tank cars of sulfuric acid, but they didn’t leak. Melonas said the acid would be transferred to tanker trucks and removed later this week.

Some of the damaged rail cars will be hauled away, but others will be cut up on site as scrap metal.

Officials thought at first that only 14 cars derailed, but found another one after sorting through the twisted wreckage, Melonas said.

The line runs from Spokane to Trail, B.C. It averages two trains a day, carrying products from the Cominco metals plant at Trail as well as several Stevens County sawmills and other industries.