On Saturday night, Estevan saw its second train derailment in less than a year.
The derailment on Feb. 28 was minor, consisting of two empty grain cars that banged into each other on the western edge of the city near Sister Roddy Road.
When emergency vehicles from the Estevan RCMP, Estevan Police Service and Estevan Fire Rescue Service arrived on the scene shortly after 9:30, two rail cars were found dislodged with a third car on the verge of derailment.
It was determined there was no spill, and there were no injuries or a blockage of road as a result of the incident.
This latest derailment comes following a larger one in May 2014, when four crude-filled tanker cars leapt the tracks in a central area of Estevan. Shortly after the derailment, it was determined no crude had spilled from the cars.
A subsequent investigation found the cause of that derailment was track subsidence, and repairs were planned for that section of track.
Prior to that, Estevan hadn’t seen a derailment in a decade, when in 2004, a number of cars left the track, an ammonia leak was detected and residences in the area were evacuated.
On Saturday, CP police arrived at the derailment site and are completing on investigation into the incident.
Estevan RCMP received a call to respond to the derailment at 9:41 p.m.
Upon arrival, RCMP Const. Chad Mehl said fire services were already on scene.
“There was a determination there was no spill or contamination of that sort. It was actually two empty grain cars that collided,” said Mehl.
“There was an initial concern by the fire chief by the way the cars were resting that it was going to cause possibly a third car to derail the way the configuration was. Other than that there was no risk to the general public.”
With the rail cars not blocking any roads, Mehl added that police didn’t need to restrict access to any of the nearest roadways.
RCMP remained at the scene until about 1:45 a.m. in order to maintain scene security. Mehl said there were a number of onlookers, and police stayed to ensure there was no interference with the clean up effort, which wrapped up prior to 2 a.m.
“They had cleared the tracks at that point and CP police arrived as well.”
CP police will be completing the investigation. Calls to CP Rail were not returned as of press time.
