Gallup train derails
Navajo Times | Donovan Quintero BNSF Railway officials walk through a debris of rails and overturned cars Friday morning in Gallup. According to Wingate Western Refinery security guard Isiah Peynetsa, who was patrolling the facility, heard a loud noise around 5:30, but was not able to see what the noise was until the sun had risen.
Emergency responders: No immediate danger at Gallup train derailment
Navajo Times | Donovan Quintero
BNSF Railway officials walk along the railway as they begin their investigation how a train, heading westbound, derailed early Friday morning east of Gallup.
By Christopher S. Pineo and Donovan Quintero
Navajo Times | Donovan Quintero
BNSF Railway officials walk through a debris of rails and overturned cars Friday morning in Gallup. According to Wingate Western Refinery security guard Isiah Peynetsa, who was patrolling the facility, heard a loud noise around 5:30, but was not able to see what the noise was until the sun had risen.
GALLUP
A westbound train hauling 32 cars lost multiple cars in an early morning derailment that damaged a bridge near I-40 in Gallup on Oct. 23.
Officials on the scene said no one was hurt, but they were still inspecting the wreck. The engine – marked BNSF 4670 – stayed upright with no one aboard hurt, according to officials.
Navajo Council member Amber Kanazbah Crotty stopped and spoke to the incident commander on scene. She said the official told her the area remained safe.
“He said that all of the hazardous material is contained,” she said. “There’s some, I believe he said, liquid asphalt, some wheat, but that there’s not an immediate threat to the area.”
Gallup Fire and Rescue, McKinley County Emergency Management, the Gallup/McKinley County Battalion Chief, and police were on hand during morning commute hours. Police scanners at that time revealed that the bridge had “been compromised.”
Officials at the scene confirmed damage to a support structure under the bridge. They had closed the El Paso Circle Bridge over the tracks off the I-40 frontage road on Route 66.
A number of train cars could be seen overturned, damaged and derailed from the road.
Navajo Times | Donovan Quintero
A car from a train derailment accident sits against a smashed pillar that supports a bridge Friday morning east of Gallup.
From atop the bridge, damage to one of the cars could be seen to have left large metal beams strewn over the tracks and under the bridge. The train track itself had taken damage.
Isiah Peynetsa, Wingate Western Refinery security guard, heard the train derail around 5 a.m. while patrolling the nearby refinery.
“I heard a real loud banging noise and didn’t see anything until about 7. That’s when I noticed train cars went off the tracks,” he said.
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Highway 264,
I-40, WB @ Winslow