GLENDORA, Miss. — National Transportation Safety Board investigators are now on scene at the site of Saturday’s derailment and hazardous-materials fire involving a Canadian National Railway train near Glendora.
The agency announced this morning [Sunday, July 6] that it had sent a team to the site of the derailment that occurred about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday. Thirteen cars derailed, with a tank car carrying the toxic and flammable liquid benzene [see “CN derailment in Mississsippi …,” Trains News Wire, July 5, 2025].
An NTSB spokesman said the agency is seeking eyewitnesses or anyone who might have surveillance video or other potentially relevant information contact the agency at witness@ntsb.gov.
Up to 30 trucks from a dozen departments battled the fire for more than nine hours, the Clarksdale Press Register reports. It was finally extinguished after CN brought in equipment specifically designed to fight hazmat fires, Tallahatchie County Fire Coordinator Linnie Maples told the newspaper. That equipment used water provided by the local fire departments and a specialized foam to smother the fire.
The estimated 150 people who had been evacuated were given the clearance to return home at 11:43 p.m.
A CN representative deferred the newspaper’s questions about the train’s makeup, origin, and destination to the NTSB; the NTSB said it did not yet have information about how many cars were on the train.
Glendora is roughly midway between Memphis, Tenn., and Jackson, Miss., on CN’s Yazoo Subdivision.
Unfortunately a lot of once reasonable alternative routes have been ripped up
Wonder if the fire fighting foam contained PFOS’s. Will give environmentalists another reason to bitch about derailments, yet they don’t say anything about the 1000’s of truck tankers on the nations highways often carrying far worse chemicals than benzene. NIMBY…who cares…
Back when the Grenada Railroad was an IPH holding the boss wanted to entice CN to operate some run through traffic over the line as a safety valve. CN should have taken the offer. Can never have too many options.
The CN did run a southbound over the Grenada Railway, unfortunately it derailed in Sardis Mississippi.
Oops.