Investigation and cleanup underway after weekend derailment
By Justin Franz MONTANA FREE PRESS
A busy rail corridor through northwest Montana was closed over the weekend after a train derailed and spilled hundreds of tons of grain on the southern edge of Glacier National Park.
On Saturday morning at approximately 5:42 a.m., a westbound BNSF Railway grain train derailed near Bear Creek, about four miles east of Essex. Nobody was injured in the derailment but 12 rail cars went off the tracks, with two sliding down a steep embankment above U.S. Highway 2. BNSF officials told Montana Free Press that the cause of the derailment was under investigation.
The derailment blocked both main line tracks for hours and forced the closure of BNSF’s busy route between the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. Passengers aboard Amtrak’s Empire Builder, which connects Chicago with Portland and Seattle, had to ride buses between Whitefish and Shelby to get around the derailment. One of the main line tracks was cleared and rebuilt by late Saturday, enabling some rail traffic to resume through the area. The second main line track was expected to reopen by Monday.
While no hazardous material was spilled in the wreck, the hundreds of tons of grain that did will likely concern wildlife officials in northwest Montana. Grain spilled along Glacier Park from leaking rail cars or derailments has been an issue for decades because when the grain ferments it attracts bears to the railroad right-of-way.
According to a lawsuit filed earlier this year by two environmental groups, BNSF trains have allegedly “killed or contributed to the deaths” of more than 50 bears between 2008 and 2018, between Shelby and Sandpoint, Idaho. BNSF has been working with wildlife officials to come up with a plan to address the issue, most notably by thoroughly cleaning up derailment sites. On Saturday afternoon, at least two vacuum trucks were spotted at the derailment site ready to begin picking up the spilled grain.
According to the Federal Railroad Administration, more than 1,000 trains derail every year in the United States.
