AUGLAIZE COUNTY, OH (WLIO) - A train derailment in southeastern Auglaize County Tuesday evening is under investigation.
Around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, a 9-1-1 call was made to the Auglaize County Sheriff's Office reporting a train derailment west of State Route 65 on Santa Fe-New Knoxville Road with five cars off line from the train. The Auglaize County EMA says 3 of the 5 cars were empty flatbeds and the other 2 were hopper cars that had non-hazardous substances inside. The Indiana & Ohio Railway train company responded to the scene and hired a derailment crew from R.J. Corman Railroad Group which came in Wednesday morning to begin the clean-up process and re-railing of the track. The train line is expected to be back open and running by Friday.
Auglaize County EMA Director Troy Anderson commented on the train derailment, ensuring residents that the materials in the offline cars are not hazardous and pose no threat to the surrounding area.
"The chemical was fertilizer. Like farming fertilizer, powdered or pellet-type material. So it was a non-hazardous substance and they had a clean-up crew, a vac truck basically, came in that would clean up and suck up and put everything back to normal. So again, the fertilizer wasn't impacting the ground, or it impacted the ground as far as laying on the ground but as far as getting down into the waterway, none of that. I stayed on site and made sure everything was up to speed with what they were doing and meeting the requirements, notifying Ohio EMA and Ohio EPA did come down, I notified them, they did come down and checked it out and confirmed everything that I'm reporting as far as it was a non-hazardous substance," stated Troy Anderson, Auglaize County EMA Director.
Director Anderson says there are no residual effects of the fertilizer that was spilled and to his understanding, it could possibly be re-used if need be. The train derailment is still currently under investigation.
Editor Note: Corrected the direction description of the derailment.
