Trains collide near Bell City, cause derailment

Two trains collided Wednesday near Bell City, leaving two Burlington Northern engines and the two preceding cars derailed.

The first call to report the derailment was received at 12:46 p.m. Wednesday, according to Stoddard County Emergency Management Director Bill Pippins.

"I was in Bloomfield when the call came in and I just circled around and headed for the scene," Pippins said. "Besides myself, the Bell City First Responders were the first on the scene and the Stoddard County Sheriff's Department weren't far behind us."

Pippins said that when they first arrived, they could see a Union Pacific train whose engines were up near Mesler and all the cars of the train intact. That is when engineers on the train directed responders to the back of the train.

"We crossed the crossing there at Mesler and went back on County Road 357," Pippins said. "When we got back there, we could see across a bean field and saw the two Burlington Northern engines laying on their sides."

Pippins said that after he and a deputy cut through the field, he immediately crawled up into the first engine fearing that someone would be injured.

"I checked in both of the locomotives to see if anybody had been injured but nobody was there," said Pippins. "About the time that I came out of the second locomotive, that is when I heard somebody yell at me and there [the conductor and the engineer] were sitting on the rail.

"A couple of Bell City Responders and myself checked them over and they refused medical treatment," Pippins said. "They said that they were all right."

Although details are sketchy and the collision is still under investigation, Pippins said that it seemed that engines of the south-bound Burlington Northern train clipped the side of a rail car on the north-bound Union Pacific train, causing the derailment.

"Burlington Northern trains rarely run on the Union Pacific lines," explained Pippins. "But what has happened with the lines down in New Orleans being all stacked up, Burlington Northern was borrowing some track time from Union Pacific because Union Pacific was able to run on some of their tracks down in Oklahoma in order to stay away from the backed-up traffic in the New Orleans and Mississippi areas."

Luckily, the car that derailed behind the two engines was only carrying corn and there were no other cars on the Burlington Northern train containing hazardous materials. There were hazardous materials on the Union Pacific train, however, the cars carrying the materials were located near the undamaged front half of the train.

"The way that the locomotives were on their side, we did suspect that there might be some leakage of diesel, though," said Pippins. "Each train carries up to 7,500 of diesel on them.

"The tanks on the first two engines were buried into the ballast on the right-hand side so we couldn't see if they were leaking or not," said Pippins. "I immediately called John Miller, who is the Union Pacific Haz-Mat Coordinator in St. Louis, and he had me contact a Haz-Mat contractor by the name of Eco Tech out of Bloomfield to respond to the scene.

"Basically the reason that we wanted them there with their excavator was to be able to dam and dike the ditch the trains were laying in just in case there was a leak."

Only an hour after the derailment, the Stoddard County Ambulance District arrived with their Incident Command Bus. From there, Pippins -- who acted as incident command director -- was able to set up an incident command center. Dexter Fire also responded with the LAPC Haz-Mat trailer.

"We got command set up and Al Banken, Dexter fire chief, ran safety for me," said Pippins. "Paramedic John Sanders from the Stoddard County Ambulance District ran medical safety for me.

"And later, my deputy director, Gary Kitchen, came up and was in charge of public relations in case any media came up with any questions."

By 7 p.m. Wednesday night, the Union Pacific rail crew consisting of approximately 75 men had responded to the scene and removed the damaged rail and installed new. The reason for this quick response, according to a Union Pacific representative who spoke to Pippins, that that section of track between St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn., is Union Pacific's second most used railway in the nation.

"While Los Angeles is their most used track, it's amazing to know that our little track right here in Stoddard County is one of the busiest lines in the U.S.," said Pippins. "[The Union Pacific official] estimated that there were up to 100 trains stacked up, north and south bound, ready to run through there because that is their primary north-south line between St. Louis and Memphis."

Union Pacific-contracted Hulcher had removed both engines from the rail siding and sitting upright by 10:30 p.m. so that the diesel could be pumped out of them.

"That went very smoothly," said Pippins. "Once they moved those engines and set them upright, we were afraid we would see leakage, but neither one of those engines leaked a drop."

Other responding agencies included Bell City Fire Department, Bell City Police Department, Advance Fire Department and the Emergency Management director and assistant director from Scott County. Responders were able to leave the scene of the derailment at approximately 12:02 a.m. Thursday morning.

This is the first time that the county has been able to institute the National Incident Management System (NIMS) policy that was adopted by the county commission not long ago.

"It went really well and I was very pleased with the emergency response and the coordination of all of the agencies involved," said Pippins. "We kept a good safe scene and the result was having the trains able to resume activity by no later than 2 a.m. this morning."

Sacha Champion may be reached via e-mail at schampion@dailystatesman.com