ALTON - A train car derailed and flipped over just off the Great River Road in Alton, carrying wheat for Ardent Mills about 7 p.m. Friday.
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About 8:30 p.m. Friday, the front cars of the train were pushed off the road and cleared the tracks for traffic on Illinois Route 100 both ways. There were no reported injuries in the incident. Traffic resumed to normal after the train was cleared from the highway.
The rail car apparently contained some wheat and was being pushed back to Ardent Mills by a rail company and the car somehow flipped over.
“The train cars were being pushed in like normal business bringing us the wheat and something obviously happened and one of them left the track,” Lanny Vanbuskirk, an Ardent Mills employee, said. “It happened around 7 p.m. They then waited for a high supervisor to come in to pull them off the road. They will need special equipment to get the one that flipped off the tracks.”
Vanbuskirk added: “This is very rare, I don’t remember anything like this happening. They will do their job and we will continue to stay up and running. It is an unfortunate mess and they will take care of it. I’m not sure of the cause, but that is why they bring investigators out.”
Traffic was blocked and cars were turned around until the tracks were cleared.
A cause of what happened with the train car flipping over was not given by those at the scene.
One person said investigators had been called to the scene and would determine what caused the incident.
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