A number of automobiles on a freight practice derailed and caught fireplace early Saturday in rural Maine, officers and the practice operator mentioned. Three staff had been damage, however their accidents had been mentioned to not be life-threatening.
The Maine Forest Service mentioned in an announcement that three locomotive engines and 6 automobiles carrying lumber and electrical wiring went off the monitor at about 8:30 a.m. in Sandwich Academy Grant Township in Somerset County.
They derailed right into a wooded space and began a small forest fireplace, which emergency responders contained and had been monitoring, the service mentioned. The three railroad workers had been taken to the hospital.
Preliminary evaluation pointed to a buildup of “melting ice and particles that washed out a part of the railroad monitor” as a doable explanation for the accident, the Forest Service added.
Some hazardous supplies had been on board the practice, the company mentioned, however officers on the scene assessed that they weren’t vulnerable to leaking or catching fireplace.
C. Doniele Carlson, the director of communications for Canadian Pacific Kansas Metropolis, additionally confirmed the derailment about 15 miles east of Jackman and mentioned the hazardous components of the practice’s cargo weren’t concerned within the fireplace.
“Our emergency response groups and dangerous supplies specialists have responded and proceed to conduct a full evaluation of the state of affairs,” Carlson mentioned in an announcement. “There aren’t any evacuations and no risk to public security.”
The hearth and rescue division in close by Rockwood posted a photograph of the derailment on its Fb web page and suggested residents to keep away from the world. The picture confirmed a number of derailed automobiles and a small fireplace, with black smoke wafting throughout snowy forestland.
A merger between Canadian Pacific and Kansas Metropolis Southern was introduced Friday. The rail line payments itself as the primary and solely single-line railway connecting Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
The derailment is the most recent one to hit the rail trade. Federal regulators and members of Congress are urging railroads to do extra to stop derailments after latest fiery wrecks involving hazardous chemical substances in Ohio and Minnesota prompted evacuations.
Rockwood, about 90 miles northwest of Bangor, is a village in Somerset County with about 300 residents. Situated on the western aspect of Moosehead Lake, one of many state’s largest freshwater our bodies, it’s a vacation spot for salmon and trout fishing on each the lake and the Moose River.
By Michael Casey
