These photos taken from a helicopter May 10th show train cars in the river two weeks after an April 26th derailment some 60km south of Valemount. No spills were reported. Photos courtesy Castanet.net
An April 26th derailment where two containers plunged into the North Thompson River, has been cleaned up a, CN spokesperson says, and no environmental damage is reported.
15 containers leaped the track during the incident. The line was reopened April 28th at 9:50am, but photos taken via helicopter May 10th show the containers still caught in the middle of the river, at the site some 60 km south of Valemount.
The two containers that fell into the river were filled with general merchandise, says Warren Chandler, CN spokesperson.
“It’s been cleaned up,” he says.
The derailment is still under investigation by the Transportation Safety Board, but indications are that it may have been caused by a washout, Chandler says.
In January 2011, a CN train derailed close to Tete-Jaune Cache, spilling coal into the Fraser River.
The Prince Rupert-bound train loaded with 113 cars of coal, was rounding a bend flanked by the Fraser River when the cars derailed and slid onto the higher bank Sunday night.
The derailment closed the line for 33 hours, and took weeks to clean up.
No injuries were reported in either incident.
It costs the company millions of dollars for each day a track is out of commission.
Once largely a company that serviced Canada, CN Rail now spans 16 U.S. states and eight provinces and has acquired $8 billion in rail acquisitions in the past 15 years.
The company is worth $30 billion up from $2.2 billion when it was privatized in 1995. For the past 15 years, total returns to shareholders, including dividends, have been roughly 21 per cent annually.
