Tracks cleared after derailment in Iowa Trains were rolling across the state Monday after a weekend derailment closed traffic on one of central Iowa's busiest routes. Thirteen cars on a Union Pacific train jumped the tracks Saturday afternoon near Marshalltown, IA. The train originated in Portland, OR, and was bound for Chicago. The cars were carrying mixed freight, but none of the freight was hazardous, said Mark Davis, spokesman for Omaha-based Union Pacific. Crews had to replace about 320 feet of track before the route reopened Sunday morning, he said. - The Associated Press, The Omaha World-Herald
I remember seeing the aftermath of a pretty spectacular train wreck on the UP main line between Kansas City and Topeka back in the 1970s. A dump truck had tried to beat a freight train to a rural grade crossing, but the train won... What was left of the truck looked like a crumpled piece of aluminum foil wrapped around the pilot of the lead diesel. All four locomotives were still coupled together in a straight line, but were up to their running boards in ballast next to the track. Behind them was a pile of freight cars about 100 feet high and 400 feet wide, with the rear of the train still on the rails. Needless to say, the passengers of the truck did not have the chance to see what their stupidity caused to happen. A police officer on the scene told me that they found what was left of one of them under several derailed cars. That was more info than my fevered imagination needed to know.
