REESEVILLE, Wis. — Twenty-nine cars of a CPKC train were reported to have derailed this afternoon (Tuesday, July 4) in Reeseville, leading to delays for Amtrak’s Empire Builder.
WKOW-TV reports the derailment occurred about 1:55 p.m. Chris Abell, deputy chief with Clyman-Lowell-Reeseville Fire & Rescue, told the station the derailed cars were carrying grain and potash. Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt said there were no injuries but significant property damage, and that Main Street in Reeseville is closed as a result. The road was reopened as of Wednesday morning.
The Amtrak Alerts Twitter site had announced at 4:40 p.m. CDT that today’s westbound Empire Builder and the eastbound train that left Seattle on July 2 would both detour around the derailment, skipping Wisconsin stops at Tomah, Wisconsin Dells, Portage, Columbus, and Milwaukee, as well as Glenview, Ill. The westbound train ended up departing Chicago 4 hours, 50 minutes late and as of 7:15 a.m. Wednesday had yet to arrive at St. Paul-Minneapolis, where it was due at 10:56 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Amtrak website. The eastbound train, which was delayed east of La Crosse, Wis., for an extended period, arrived in Chicago at 2:18 a.m., some 9 hours, 33 minutes late.
Reeseville (population 763 as of the 2020 census) is on the CPKC Watertown Subdivision, approximately 55 miles west of Milwaukee.
— Updated July 5 at 7:18 a.m. CDT with information on roads, Empire Builder status; updated at 10:35 a.m. with photo.
How did the Amtrak trains detour? Sounds like No. 8 was behind (west of the derailment) Possibly they used UP from Tunnel City and went east somehow from there. I presume No. 7 went on the BNSF by way of La Crosse. These detour arrangments are interesting to know.
All the line abandonments, sales, etc. have removed lots of reroute options that existed decades ago.
No. 8 backed up to LaCrosse, then went east on BNSF to Chicago. It’s the standard detour route for the Builder when things like this happen.
Ed you are correct. Some of the contributors make it sound like railroads want to have the derailments. Railroads I’m sure would love to have zero derailments. Think what that would do for their financial sheet.. Remember what railroads can do is what helps to contribute to derailments. Metal wheels against metal rail hauling large amounts of tonnage in all kinds of weather Could more be done to prevent derailments, always ? Not much freight would get moved if they had to run a railcar defect detector car between trains. Eliminate all grade crossings so motor vehicles don’t get hit by trains causing derailments.
Derailments are nothing new. It is not “several years of chronic derail events”, it is many, many decades. More than a century of derailments in truth – since the first trains began running years before the U.S. Civil War. Someone might be able to dig up the statistics. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that there are fewer derailments now than 20 or 40 or 50 years ago, etc.. Regardless, the industry wants even fewer I’m sure.
We are going on several years of chronic derail events. I know each one is investigated, reports are derived and payouts by whomever are completed.
Its this “ho-hum” matter of a factly attitude about these multi-car derails that is starting to bother people. Even East Palestine was considered a “ho-hum” event until the mushroom cloud from the burnoff appeared for all to see, including the media.
I wonder what people would say if FedEx crashed just one of their planes, but did so once a month. Would it be considered the norm?
Derailments are the fearful “bête noire” of the freight trains in North America and they cannot disappear spontaneously! On the other hand, this serious problem cannot be overlooked any longer by the railroad companies!
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
Thank god the thousands of trains in the Saint John-Lázaro Cárdenas pipeline aren’t affected.
LOL
Calling Charles Landey……
This is in your territory.
Good morning John. Thanks for thinking of me. Quite a pile-up, to judge by the photos. Dodge County isn’t exactly my territory but I know where it is. Watertown, a CPKC division point, is in both Dodge and Jefferson Counties.
See Dr. Ustun’s comment below. Since East Palestine every derailment is national news. Can’t be hidden any more.
Given Twitter (for what it’s worth) is there a plan ?