Train derails in Kannapolis

By Scott Jenkins, Salisbury Post

KANNAPOLIS - Authorities evacuated homes and businesses this morning after a Norfolk-Southern tanker filled with motor oil derailed and overturned along the tracks on North Main Street.

Another car overturned, but was empty. A second empty car derailed and a tanker carrying nitric acid leaned from the weight of the derailed cars. Nitric acid can be harmful to the skin or if it is breathed. But authorities said the car wasn't leaking and didn't pose a threat.

The cars derailed just a few feet from a railroad bridge that passes over Jackson Park Road. Officials say it could have been caused by a device meant to prevent parked train cars from rolling onto the main track.

The tanker carrying the oil was not leaking, but Kannapolis officials requested a hazardous materials crew from Salisbury anyway.

"Everything we've done thus far is just for precautionary reasons, in case it did roll over," Kannapolis Fire Chief Larry Phillips said.

City officials allowed residents and business owners back into the mill homes and businesses near the derailment, but planned to keep several streets closed until Norfolk-Southern notified them of when the cars would be moved.

Kannapolis Fire Marshal Randall Faggart said it was unclear how long that might be. Norfolk Southern must bring in a crane to lift the tankers and set them on new cars, he said.

"It could be in Charlotte or it could be as far away as Atlanta," Faggart said. "You don't have one of these sitting around in your backyard."

Norfolk Southern employees on the scene declined to comment about the derailment. One said safety officials with the railroad company were on the way from Norfolk, Va.

Several of the cars had been sitting on a side track - a sort of parking lot for train cars - awaiting a train assigned to hook up to them and pull them to their destination, Faggart said.

A derailer prevents the trains from rolling into the path of other trains. Faggart said that device could have been triggered somehow before a train connected to the cars this morning.

Investigators will try to determine exactly why the cars derailed.

Residents and business owners said the calamity was frightening when the cars jumped the track shortly before 9:30 this morning.

The two cars that rolled onto their sides came to rest behind 604 and 606 North Main Street. Angeisca Medina, who lives at 606 N. Main, was sleeping after her night-shift job.

"It shook the house," she said. "I got out fast."

Charles Farabee, who owns an accounting firm at 610 N. Main, was clearing debris from his parking lot left by Monday's storm when the train began moving south.

"The last car was having some problems," he said. "It looked like it was off the track; the wheels were bouncing up and down."

The car made a lot of noise, then stopped. Farabee said he's used to the noise trains make when they start up, so he went back inside his business.

"Then I heard a loud noise,"he said. "I came back out and looked, and it was on its side."

Some officials on the scene weren't surprised by the accident. Capt. Woody Chavis of the Kannapolis Police Department said he can't remember it happening before.

"We knew sooner or later it was going to happen," he said.

Others said it could have been much worse. If the train had rolled a few more feet, the cars might have overturned on the bridge, and tumbled onto Jackson Park Road, Faggart said. "The good Lord smiled on us today," he said.