Railways Africa

The rail bridge over the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, Missouri, is closed as a result of “about 30 barges” breaking free from their tug and smashing into the supporting piers. At the time of writing, 15 barges had been recovered but two sank. The barges were loaded with coal and grain. It was unclear how [...]

At about 18:00 on 28 April, a passenger train derailed near the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border in Canada. It was bound for Churchill, Manitoba when it left the rails at Togo, Saskatchewan 383km east of the state capital Saskatoon. It was established that ground beneath the track had been washed out. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, [...]

Two men in their fifties, both with name of Smith, were charged with “petit larceny and trespass” after they were arrested in the village of South Dayton, New York state, allegedly stealing steel spikes from the New York and Lake Erie Railroad. The Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s Office is to bring them before the court soon.

According to findings by the US Federal Department of Transportation, a broken rail caused the 2 February derailment of eight out of 105 wagons in a Hamlet-Wilmington freight train at Bladenboro, North Carolina, USA. Most of the wagons were empty but one that came off the track was carrying anhydrous ammonia, a toxic gas used [...]

The presence of a high railway embankment probably saved hundreds of lives on 17 April when a Texas fertiliser plant exploded. It shielded a community of nearly 3,000 during the blast. The explosion killed 14 (11 of them firefighters and paramedics) and injured an estimated 200. About 20 minutes elapsed between the time when a [...]

Metra, Chicago’s metropolitan transport authority, had trains running up to 100 minutes late on the morning of 18 April, following exceptionally heavy rains that dumped 150mm and caused extensive flooding in the city. Ironically, the Chicago Tribune reported, Metra’s “new multi-million-dollar Train Tracker system proved unreliable. It reflected “mythical trains running on time as commuters [...]

On 19 April, following the horrific bombing at the marathon event, transport to and from the Boston area was virtually shut down as the manhunt continued for the perpetrators. Amtrak suspended passenger train service indefinitely between New York and Boston. Trains continued to run between Washington DC, Philadelphia and New York, but Amtrak police checked [...]

On 16 April, a minor collision in a yard at Oklahoma City resulted in a fire on board a train. Apparently a boxcar carrying shredded paper was sideswiped during a shunting move and the impact set the contents ablaze. Firecrews attended immediately and extinguished the flames.

In a bizarre incident in Halifax Township at Lykens in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, the occupants of a car were able to extricate themselves when it overturned, before rolling down an embankment and being hit by a train. Being strictly speaking separate occurrences, each accident is under individual investigation.

Heavy rains gave rise to severe landslips in Washington state on 7 April. Amtrak’s Empire Builder express from Chicago was travelling south from Everett to Seattle when debris fell against the train, derailing the last three vehicles, including the dining car. The track was reportedly buried five metres deep in place, over a distance of [...]