What a day and what a mess it turned out to be this past Sunday on Donner. My girlfriend and I decided to head up the mountain for her first railfanning adventure. On I-80 east at Long Ravine we passed under a stacker that turned out to be the fateful IG3OA. It was too late for me to jump off the freeway, so I decided that I was going to continue to Gold Run to shoot the ZG2LT that was hot on the rails behind the IG3. All of that changed when I heard the defect detector squawk that there was a defect and followed almost immediately after by the DS calling the head of the IG3 and advising them that he now had a track indication on MT2 and he feared that they were on the ground somewhere.
He was right indeed… They were on the ground and right at the main crossing in downtown Colfax, Ca. I arrived less than five minutes after the derailment and just as first responders were arriving on scene. CalFire was quite concerned that there was a HazMat incident as one of the containers was leaking an unidentified clear solution and began their HazMat procedures just in case (the crew had already verified that there was no HazMat in those containers on their paperwork and with Omaha). The container was filled with animal hides being shipped in brine which was the leaking fluid. Once the HazMat warning was issued, everyone got a quick boot from the area and road closures went into place.
- PCSO arriving on scene.
- The unlucky conductor walking back to see exactly how much of a mess there was.
- Decent size mess.
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