In total, 17 of 30 derailed cars carried grain
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Investigators are trying to figure out what caused a train to derail near Warman, Sask. yesterday.
A 52-car Canadian National freight train came off its tracks around 9:30 a.m. at the intersection of Highway 11 and Wanuskewin Road.
Of the 52 cars, 30 derailed and 17 of those carried grain.
Federal investigators will be on scene to try to determine how the derailment occurred.
“The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is deploying a team of investigators to the site of a derailment involving a Canadian National Railway train near Warman, Saskatchewan,” the agency said in a statement yesterday. “The investigators will be on site (Wednesday) to gather information and assess the occurrence.”
Eyewitness videos show fire rising from the train as it speeds along the track. CN has since confirmed that fuel leaked from the train.
“We recognized immediately there was a diesel fuel leak from one of the engines which subsequently caught fire,” Wayne Rodger, the Saskatoon Fire Department’s assistant chief, said to Global News.
Some of the focus now may shift to preventing these kinds of incidents.
CN could use any feedback from the derailment to make necessary policy changes, said James Nolan, a professor of ag and resource economics from the University of Saskatchewan.
“They are definitely trying to have a zero-tolerance policy on derailment, especially in urban areas, because of the fear it would engender,” Nolan told the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
Farms.com has reached out to the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan and to Nolan for comment on the incident and any implications for farmers who perhaps had grain loaded on that train.
Warman Fire Rescue/Facebook photo