TRENT, Texas — About two dozen cars of a Union Pacific train derailed east of Trent on Tuesday, April 23, KTXS-TV reports.
The derailment occurred about 8 p.m.; a UP spokesman said there were no injuries and no releases of hazardous materials. Images on the station website show derailed double-stack containers.
KTAB/KRBC-TV reports that high winds are being blamed for the derailment, according to the Texas Division of Emergency Management. Winds of up to 70 mph were reported in the area Tuesday night.
Trent is 23 miles west of Abilene, Texas, on UP’s Baird Subdivision, adjacent to Interstate 20.
— Updated at 6:50 p.m. with report of winds as cause of derailment.
I thought the class 1’s kept weather personnel in the dispatch centers to worn trains of adverse weather. I have heard warnings of storm threats on my scanner with instruction to halt the train. Less damage to track and cargo if the train is stopped.
You are right George. In a 70 mile an hour wind, a stack train is a moving flat sided barrier just waiting to be moved, sideways! I was driving I-15 south, paralleling UP’s double track main between Ogden and Salt Lake City, UT through the “Davis County Down Slope Wind Zone” in the 90’s and watched a UP manifest train of mostly Covered Hoppers and Boxcars get blown right off the tracks by these high speed down slope winds in excess of 70 mph. They just rolled over as if a big hand just flicked them with its fingers. I’ve seen the same with Tractor Trailers getting blown around in Wyoming and videos of it happening in the great plains. Its an awesome but frightening sight to see the power of nature sometimes. I think the weather mapping and conditions are much better monitored than it was in the past just because of the rise in available technology, like Doppler radar that is everywhere now as well as the myriads of high-tech weather satelites in gyosynchronis orbit overhead…
“23 miles west of Abilene” is not in “central Texas” for a Texan. That’s west Texas.