Tuesday, July 18, 2006 • Nubieber derailment

Publisher’s note: This story originally appeared in the Tuesday, July 18, 2006 edition of the Lassen County Times.

A freight train derailment in Big Valley kept emergency officials and crews on high alert for most of the day Thursday, July 13, for fear of a potential explosion.

The southbound, 100-car Burlington Northern Railroad train en route from Klamath Falls to Reno jumped the tracks at about 9:30 a.m., just beyond the Highway 299 underpass at the entrance to the Nubieber switching yard, coming to a halt only after four of the five locomotives pulling the train and the first seven cars behind them derailed.

Three of the derailed cars were tank cars, fully loaded with propane, causing officials to promptly close the two-lane highway, the main artery between Redding and Alturas, and evacuate the residents of Nubieber, a small town at the south end of Big Valley.

The mandatory evacuation to create a three-quarter mile safety zone around the wreck in case of an explosion affected fewer than 60 people.

“It was about 9:40 that the call came in,” said incident commander Lieutenant Dean Growdon, of the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office later, at the scene. “I responded immediately.”

In addition, CDF personnel, CHP officers, Caltrans crews, the Bieber Volunteer Fire Department and the Modoc Ambulance from Adin quickly responded.

Emergency crews first on scene determined that there were no injuries to the engineer and his assistant, who left the area without comment, and there were no other personnel in the train yard.

Traffic on Highway 299 was detoured onto gravel and dirt roads around the accident from the south end of Big Valley to Bieber for over seven hours.

“At about 10 o’clock, the sheriff made the decision to evacuate the town of Nubieber and wait for a HAZMAT team to show up to confirm what we really have,” said Barney Ward, division chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and designated spokesman. He placed the number of responders to the scene at more than 50.

Although there was as yet no official determination of the cause, an examination of the crash scene revealed that the derailment likely occurred at the northernmost of two switches in the Nubieber yard as the third of five locomotives pulling the train passed over it. Four of the locomotives ultimately skidded from the track, plowing up the rail bed and coming to rest tipped to their right with their undercarriage buried in dirt and gravel.

The violence of the event was clearly evident in the wreckage of railroad cars, jackknifed and scattered like so much litter on either side of the rail bed, behind the partially buried locomotives. Bent and broken steel rails and piles of railroad ties could be seen under the derailed cars.

Two of the railcars, which were loaded with grain, skidded to the right side of the railway and split open, spilling their contents over a wide area. Another boxcar jumped to the other side of the track and crashed through the wall of a large metal warehouse or work shed adjacent to the tracks before coming to a halt.

Officials feared that the smashed building might have been occupied, but a quick search found no occupants.

Next in line were the three suspect tank cars. They were only slightly derailed, and suffered no apparent rupture, though first responders on scene reported smelling gas. It was also determined that one of the locomotive diesel fuel tanks had a small leak.

The cargo manifest informed officials that two of the tank cars contained propane. A third, it was thought, carried pentanes, a highly flammable liquid. It was later determined that all three cars contained propane.

At about 4 p.m., the Shasta County HAZMAT immediate response team from Redding arrived on scene. Two specially clad and protected team members went in with “sniffers” to check for leaks or spills of flammable liquids while three backup crewmembers stood by. They determined that the tank cars were intact and there were no leaks.

After the “all clear” word was given, Growdon assessed the daylong effort — “It’s gone really well. CDF has a lot of expertise in these areas, and CHP and Caltrans have been a big help. We’re in charge of the incident because it falls in our jurisdiction, but we rely heavily on their experience and knowledge.”

The highway was reopened about 5 p.m. after being closed for about eight hours. A team of specialists in derailments arrived in several well-equipped trucks to begin the repair and salvage operations.