A train derailed in western Iowa early today. Crews are on the scene, cleaning up debris from a major train derailment that happened just before one o’clock this morning near Carroll. Two Union Pacific trains were involved according to U-P spokesman Mark Davis.Davis says the last eight cars on a 75-car train headed from Chicago to L.A. derailed and hit a 99-car train that was traveling from North Platte, Nebraska to Chicago. Twenty-six cars on the east-bound train derailed. Davis says crews not only have to right the railcars, they have to rebuild about 18-hundred fett of track on one line and about 700 feet of train on the other. Davis says the train headed west was carrying vehicles. Davis says the eight westbound cars were carrying various types of trucks. The cars headed east were carrying frozen food, tomato paste, potatoes, lumber, salt and soda ash, which is used to make glass. None of the materials were toxic.Davis says it’ll be some time before investigators determine the cause of the accident. Davis says it’s one of the railroad’s major east/west corridors, seeing about 60 trains per day. Some are being rerouted to competing rail lines; other trains are being diverted to Union Pacific tracks that run through Kansas City and Minneapolis.
