Heat Deemed Cause of Train Derailment

MINEOLA (Staff/AP) — Wood County Emergency officials spoke with our news partner KETK again Friday, confirming that Thursday afternoon’s train derailment on CR 2790 was, in fact, heat related. A train had previously derailed in that location a few weeks earlier, and officials say that the repairs that were made on that same section of track were done in the night hours, and during a much cooler time of year. Officials say the repairs were tightly fitted at that time, and when East Texas entered a period of record-setting heat, the metal expanded, busting the line and causing another derailment.

The derailment left 18 grain-hauling cars off the tracks. Union Pacific spokeswoman Raquel Espinoza said crews have been working to clear the tracks, several miles east of Mineola, and that the line could reopen sometime today. She says nobody was hurt in the derailment of a train made up of four locomotives and 99 cars, traveling from Kingfisher, Okla., to Westwego, La. The National Weather Service says the temperature in the area reached 109 degrees. Some hopper cars overturned, spilling grain. Espinoza didn’t immediately have a damage estimate.