tornado caused derailment

[Anonymous]

I was flipin' through the tv channels and stopped at the Weather Channel to see whats coming. apparently in west texas, a tornade derailed a train. any info on this?

[UPTRAIN]

Oh my God!!! No info but watch the newswire on trainsmag...and the weather channel.

[Nora]

I just saw an article on cnn.com about this, not that it has a whole lot more information:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WEATHER/05/12/tornado.train.ap/index.html

[CShaveRR]

Here's a little more, from the UTU web site:

Storm derails coal train
AMARILLO - Just hours after watching a mighty wind flip train cars like toys, Sherwin Koehn sounded cool and collected, according to The Amarillo Globe-News.
"I wasn't even that concerned at the time," he said. "I thought it was just a big whirlwind."

Koehn, who farms a few miles south of Hartley, said he was sitting in his pickup in his driveway as a storm moved through about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.

"It was raining pretty hard. It was a little bit of hail," Koehn said. "I was just fixing to go out and check on my wheat crop, and I noticed the twister."

He described what he saw as a small tornado about 150 feet wide.

"It come across the land and when it hit the train, it just rolled about eight or 10 cars off," Koehn said.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe received reports that 15 cars, including two locomotives, derailed, according to Joe Faust, director of media relations for the railroad.

No one was injured, he said.

The locomotives that derailed were at the back of the train and the train's crew was at the front of the train, which remained on the tracks.

The empty coal train was headed north on tracks that run alongside U.S. Highway 385, Faust said.

Hartley County Sheriff Franky Scott said some power lines were down near the derailment including one line lying across the highway.

Officers kept the highway closed until power company workers arrived.

"I knew it (the line) was dead, but I wasn't going to mess with it," Scott said.

Officers reopened the highway about 8:15 p.m. after a wrecker service from Amarillo removed a rail car that had ended up on the road, he said.

Scott said several people who witnessed the derailment said they thought the storm was a tornado.

The National Weather Service in Amarillo had not confirmed by late Tuesday whether the event was a tornado or simply high wind.

An NWS employee was headed to Hartley to do a storm survey, said Steve Bilodeau of the NWS.

The line of storms formed along the Texas-New Mexico border and moved northeast, bringing reports of hail and rain to parts of the northern Texas Panhandle and the Oklahoma Panhandle.

Based on Doppler radar, the NWS estimated between .5 inch and 1 inch of rain may have fallen in some areas.

A landowner near Dumas reported receiving a half-inch of rain.

Observers reported hail ranging from penny-size north of Vega to quarter-size north of Dumas, as well as a wind gust of 65 mph east of Sunray.

By 8:30 p.m., the storms were dying down, Bilodeau said.

The forecast for the Amarillo area today includes a 30-percent chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon.

(This item appeared in the Amarillo Globe-News May 12, 2004)

[Mookie]

See - don't mess with MOTHER nature!

[UPTRAIN]

One of the locomotives on the rear that got rolled by the wind was BNSF SD70MAC #9936. No crew members were in this unit.

[Willy2]

I hate it whenever I hear about weather getting the best of the railroads. I like storms, but not when they get strong enough to derail trains.

Willy

[Kozzie]

I understand there is a tornado season? Must be bad time for all. Do the rail lines usually cop a beating that time of year?

[UPTRAIN]

Would be hell on earth to be on that lead unit if it hit it!!! GET DOWN IN THe NOSE!!! AHHH...IT'S COMING THIS WAY!!!

[Anonymous]

Hmm..if a tornadoe sounds like a frieght train coming, what do the crews say when they hear it? "is that another train coming our way?" [:D]

Jay