CALIENTE, Calif. — About 15 cars of a Union Pacific train derailed on Tehachapi Pass today (Tuesday, Feb. 18), blocking traffic on the busy route shared by UP and BNSF Railway.
KBAK-TV reports the Kern County Fire Department was called to the derailment about 9:29 a.m. on Caliente-Bodfish Road, 2 miles north of State Route 58 in Caliente. No injuries were reported and no leaks were involved; the fire department said it was told by the railroad the tank cars involved had been empty for some time.
BNSF Railway says in a customer advisory that it and UP both responded to the incident, and that the estimated time to reopen the line is about midnight PT tonight.
Caliente, on UP’s Mojave Subdivision, is about 25 miles from Bakersfield and 25 miles from Tehachapi.
If it is an empty wheel/stack car it could be a single one also or is it another empty lumber car on its side.
Also Williams Loop on the Western Pacific, east of Quincy, CA.
Empty lumber flat coupled to an empty well car. Could be a three-unit or five-unit well car. Much, much speculation on my part, but could it be a string-line issue?
A couple of Internet bloggers on the scene posted that they were told by clean-up employees that it was, in fact, stringlining of several empty center beam flat cars on a curve which also include some empty hoppers, tank cars and box cars as well. It was cleaned up rather quickly (pushed out of the way and away from the tracks) and traffic restored the next day…
The only time I ever set foot in CA was in the early 90s when SPRR was taken over by DRGW. My Tucson boss, at that time, along with another telecom tech, drove us to Bakersfield, CA for a technical introduction conference on the newly being installed automatic equipment identification (AEI) technology.
On the way through the Tehachpi Mtn. pass, I was able to observe that amazing railroad helix that passed over itself, though there were no trains present at the time. The only other example that I can think of, (though there may be a few others), is the Swiss Goddard Tunnel railroad helix that is buried from view within the mountain and therefore not visible from the outside.
Spiral tunnels in western Canada, too.