Railroad crews continue to clean up wreckage after a train derailed in downtown Mullins Monday morning.
The Carolina Southern Railroad train carrying coal was en route to Santee Cooper when it jumped the tracks around 9 a.m. Eleven of the train’s cars left the tracks, spilling large mounds of coal onto the ground nearby. No one was injured in the accident.
Jean English is the secretary and treasurer of Taylor, Harris and Webster Insurance Agency, which is located across the street from the tracks.
She said she heard the train derail shortly arriving at work.
"All of a sudden it sounded like all Hades had broken loose out there," she said.
A few minutes later she walked outside and was shocked at what she saw.
"I thought, ‘For crying out loud, what's wrong with that dumb train?’"
Officials with Carolina Southern Railroad aren’t sure what caused the derailment, but say they’ve seen worse situations.
"We've been through these things before,” Jason Pippin, the company’s vice president, said. “These types of things look terrible. (They’re) not quite as bad as they look.
“We hate it, we wish it wouldn't happen but at some point you're going to have a derailment."
The accident blocked four downtown streets – Main, Mullins, Park and Gapway – for about three hours. By about noon, railroad officials had cleared out some of the train’s cars to allow traffic to go through.
Cleaning up the wreckage, however, could take up to two weeks, Pippin said. He hopes to have the tracks ready for trains to go through by Wednesday.
Pippin said each car on the train carries about 100 tons of coal. He expects the company will be able to salvage about 90 percent of the coal on the eleven cars involved in the accident.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement