This year GTOs Get Rarer...

Scyry · April 15, 2005

From the DesMoinesRegister.com

By ERIN JORDAN

REGISTER STAFF WRITER

April 14, 2005

Blairstown, Ia. - Train traffic on a major coast-to-coast freight line was stopped Wednesday afternoon when a train accident just west of Blairstown derailed 11 cars, injuring one crew member.

The derailment happened about 1:45 p.m. when an eastbound Union Pacific coal train was stopped for traffic near Blairstown and another train hit it from behind, railroad officials said.

Two crew members aboard the freight train traveling from North Platte, Neb., to Chicago suffered minor injuries, said Mark Davis, spokesman for the Union Pacific Railroad. A third crew member was transported by ambulance to Mercy Hospital in Cedar Rapids for non-life-threatening injuries, Davis said.

Dozens of new automobiles on the train were damaged as at least four train cars tipped on their sides, said Michael Ferguson, chief deputy for the Benton County Sheriff's Department.

"You didn't order a yellow GTO, did you?" Sheriff Randy Forsyth said. "We saw one of those."

One rail car full of coal was crushed, leaving coal on the rail bed, Ferguson said. Hazardous materials crews and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources were called because of an estimated 3,000 gallons of diesel fuel spilled.

Federal transportation officials were on the scene Wednesday afternoon to investigate, Ferguson said.

Railroad officials quickly brought in bulldozers and other machinery to clean up the scene, which cannot be accessed directly by road. Union Pacific planned to have the derailment cleaned up by midnight or early today, Ferguson said, but track repairs will likely delay traffic today.

Four or five trains an hour usually pass over the busy rails at Blairstown, Forsyth said.

"A lot of commerce goes through here," Ferguson added. "They're backed up clear across the country at this point."

Davis said crews would work through Wednesday night to replace the damage and clean up the mess. He said there are few detour routes in the area, so rail traffic on the freight line will remain backed up until the scene is cleared.

The last major train wreck in Iowa occurred in Adams County in 2001, when an Amtrak train derailed, killing one passenger and injuring dozens of others. The accident was caused by a defective rail.

Before that, in 1999, a Union Pacific freight train pulling 126 cars slammed into a parked, empty grain train in Alton, killing the conductor and the driver of a van parked near the tracks.

Three months earlier, two Dubuque railroad workers died when the Union Pacific train they were operating hit the end of a Burlington Northern-Santa Fe train.

Register staff writer Tim Paluch contributed to this article.

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Going to be lots of angry customers out there waiting on their orders that will be delayed...

Maybe ZR2 could pick up a cheap LS2 for the new project S-10

facn8me · April 15, 2005

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGG

GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

Indy · April 15, 2005

The GTO is STILL not available in Canada. That makes them rare here. I am in line for one when they become available. My other choice is a CTS-V but $$$$$.

MrQuadrasteer · April 15, 2005

Oh, the humanity !!!!!!!!

A moment of silence, please...

Bgdsub72 · April 15, 2005

oops...hope they have insurance for all those

Wingnut · April 15, 2005

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Crap...Is it pirate day, and nobody told me?

I hate it when I'm the last one to find out.

***Wingnut's groaner joke of the day***

Do you know why pirates are so cool?

Because they just ARRRRRRRRR!

blue2kzr2 · April 15, 2005

That's still not as bad as what happened with my dad's last ordered vehicle. He had ordered a Ram 2500 with a Hemi, the 3/4-ton trucks are built in Mexico. Well, on the BOAT up from Mexico, they must have hit some rough seas, most of the 300+ trucks on the ship were undeliverable when they arrived in Port Newark, including his. What was worse, for him, was this was his SECOND Dodge that he had ordered and the SECOND that had to be built twice.