Western Railroad Discussion > UP in the ground near Delta, CO

UP has apparently had a derailment in the vicinity of Delta, Colorado. This is the North Fork sub and is 99.9% coal trains. More details when and if I hear anything.

Updates now show train hit a rockslide at approximately MP 35 which is about 15 miles west of Delta. This happened at 0710 today, Monday the 31st of March. This is some quite remote country and the rescue responders were required to use ATVs to reach the site. Unsure at this time if the train was a westbound load or an eastbound empty. No injuries were reported to the crew. Fortunately this is a 25 MPH line.

KK

From the track charts I was able to guess about where MP 35 is. There are lots of places that are hard to get to in the canyon.
I love shooting the north fork sub. Its so scenic and easy to shoot the trains (since they go slow).

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My milepost was a guesstimate as I never heard and exact location. It could be a bit farter West, past the orchards along the river bottom. Wathcing news hoping they will pin point for us. But the last derailment never even made the news (a boulder came down and grazed the sides of the engines and cars).

KK

Ah, but that other 0.1% (actually it's less, it's about 0.012%, assuming the weekly local averages 40 cars<g>) is sooooo much more interesting!!!

KK, any local scuttlebutt on how the changes at the Russel Stover plant are going to affect rail shipments to/from Montrose? Any new customers down there? Article in the paper last week said the Grand Junction-Montrose area is one of the fastest-growing in the US, although right now I'm not sure what that really means.

lowwater

It was an empty eastbound coal train led by the 6601. 6601 derailed as did one or two axles of the second, unidentified unit. This happened near the orchard at what was once the siding of Broughton, Colorado. Several rocks on the order of 12 feet cubed fell on and fouling the track. One had knocked the track a foot out of line within 5 linal feet.

Not a fun way to start a Monday!

KK

15 Hulcher pieces w/b on I 70 mon morn from Den

Interesting thing was it didn't make the daily GJ paper, although we did get 7 pages of sports, out of 20!

Derailment appeared to have been at the sharp full turn between Dominguez and Broughton.

KK