TRAIN DERAILS IN DOWNTOWN CORVALLIS, OREGON Photo here: [www.gazettetimes.com] Caption reads: Portland & Western Railroad crews work to get a freight car back on the tracks Wednesday afternoon on Sixth Street in downtown Corvallis. (Photo by Andy Cripe/Corvallis Gazette-Times) CORVALLIS, OR -- A Portland and Western train derailed in downtown Corvallis, Oregon about 11:20 hours Wednesday, blocking several streets. There were no injuries. Railroad employees said a car about eight cars behind the engine might have hit a patch of track near Southwest Adams and Sixth Street that collapsed. That car apparently stayed on the rails but about 30 cars later the track collapsed and several cars derailed, tearing up pavement. There was a complete break in the train between Southwest Jefferson and Adams Avenues. A railroad employee said when one of the links between cars is pulled apart, the train’s braking system kicks in automatically and that was why the train stopped. The derailed cars were all empty boxcars. At the request of Corvallis police, the train’s engineer pulled the 40 cars that were still on the tracks forward, clearing intersections along Sixth Street from Southwest Jefferson Avenue north. Still blocked were Adams and Washington Avenues at Sixth. Seventh Street at Western Avenue was blocked where the railroad rounds a curve and heads westward. Western itself was not blocked. A spokesman for the railroad said the derailed cars would be lifted back onto the track by crane. An engine will be brought in to tow each car down the track. Each car weighs about 153,000 pounds when empty. The railroad hopes to have the cars removed by 17:00 hours today, and the track fixed by midnight. - The Corvallis Gazette-Times
I follow Portland and Western a bit here in Portland, Oregon, and this is the first I had heard of this derailment. Thanks for posting this!
Wrong end of the country! When I opened this topic, I expected to find information about a derailment on the Providence & Worcester! That's what "P&W" always meant to me as a Traffic Manager. mg:
I wonder what they mean by "collapsed?" Has there perhaps been a lot of rain in recent days? Boxcab E50
I am going to guess that the soil got full of water and gave way under the weight of the train. Some of the non-Class I track in Oregon is pretty dodgy. We're not talking smooth ribbon rail but more like maintenance-deferred ex-SP lines. If I had to guess, I'd say that the particular section of track was probably ripe for some maintenance anyway. I don't know for sure and I live about 80 miles from Corvallis so I didn't see it firsthand, but I would say it's a definite possibility. The P&W is a really fun little road, though. Now if we could just get them to run some passenger service...
Sounds like you're describing the track that runs 50 feet from my house: dodgy, bumpy, lumpy bad-order nastiness. Coos Bay Line of CORP that is. Some sections got ribbon rail last year, but it's still pretty sketchy. This line is also a beautiful bit of trackage that could see revenue from passenger service ... casino junkets, railfans, scenery tourists, etc. ----trk
When I was a motorman on one of the earlier incarnations of the Willamette Shore Trolley we were told to not exceed a particular speed (which we were told to determine by feel since there was no speedo) because the trackage was so bad in places that there was a very real danger of dumping poor old car 300 on its side. Fortunately for car 300, it's now in service in Astoria. The Willamette Shore Line is getting munched up from the north end every time someone gets some urban renewal money burning a hole in their pockets. Anyway, that line was an old SP line, too, in this case the same trackage that had been used by the Red Electric once upon a time. (Yes, I know I am only 33 now. You should have seen some of the passengers when a 19 year old kid got on the trolley, the youngest operator at the time by about 30 years, and started in with the historical bit immediately prior to running. More than once I was asked if I had a license.)
