Freight train engines, cars derail and catch fire in Maine

Several cars on a freight train derailed and stuck fire early Saturday in rural Maine, officers and the train operator mentioned. Three employees had been harm, however their accidents had been mentioned to not be life-threatening.

The Maine Forest Service mentioned in a remark that 3 locomotive engines and six cars wearing lumber and electric wiring went off the monitor at about 8:30 a.m. in Sandwich Academy Grant Township in Somerset County.

They derailed right into a wooded house and began a small woodland fire, which emergency responders contained and had been tracking, the provider mentioned. The 3 railroad staff had been taken to the medical institution.

Preliminary review pointed to a buildup of “melting ice and debris that washed out part of the railroad track” as a conceivable reason behind the coincidence, the Forest Service added.

Some hazardous fabrics had been on board the train, the company mentioned, however officers at the scene assessed that they weren’t susceptible to leaking or catching fire.

C. Doniele Carlson, the director of communications for Canadian Pacific Kansas City, additionally showed the derailment about 15 miles (24 kilometers) east of Jackman and mentioned the hazardous components of the train’s shipment weren’t concerned in the fire.

“Our emergency response teams and hazardous materials experts have responded and continue to conduct a full assessment of the situation,” Carlson mentioned in a remark. “There are no evacuations and no threat to public safety.”

The fire and rescue division in close by Rockwood posted a photograph of the derailment on its Facebook web page and recommended citizens to keep away from the realm. The symbol confirmed a couple of derailed cars and a small fire, with black smoke wafting throughout snowy forestland.

A merger between Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern used to be introduced Friday. The rail line expenses itself as the primary and handiest single-line railway connecting Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

The derailment is the most recent one to hit the rail trade. Federal regulators and participants of Congress are urging railroads to do extra to stop derailments after fresh fiery wrecks involving hazardous chemical substances in Ohio and Minnesota caused evacuations.

Rockwood, about 90 miles (140 kilometers) northwest of Bangor, is a village in Somerset County with about 300 citizens. Located at the western aspect of Moosehead Lake, some of the state’s biggest freshwater our bodies, it’s a vacation spot for salmon and trout fishing on each the lake and the Moose River.

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Casey reported from Boston. Associated Press author Mark Thiessen contributed from Anchorage, Alaska.