MONTROSE, Iowa – A freight train struck a barge that had turned sideways in the Mississippi River and whose nose protruded over the tracks. Six coal-carrying cars derailed, three crashing onto the river. Two others didn’t go into the river but their loads did. The impact knocked both locomotives off the tracks. The Iowa Natural Resources Department said that 1,400 gallons of diesel fuel spilled out of the locomotives. Two train crew members were taken 12 miles to the Fort Madison hospital with non-life threatening injures. The coal unit train was southbound on Burlington Northern Santa Fe right-of-way after passing through Burlington, 30 miles upriver, and Montrose. The accident, about 11:50 p.m, Saturday, blocked River Road between the Montrose city limits and 320th Street downriver. At dawn the railroad was preparing to recover the coal, which posed no environmental threat, and sop up the diesel fuel, which did.
Locomotives on sides. The 20-ton six-axle engines lost an estimated 1,400 gallons of diesel fuel, which seeped toward the river.