Six cars plunge into river in train derailment near Brownsville

Only one car leaked

Canadian Pacific will have to rebuild some track south of Brownsville, Minn., after it cleans up a freight train derailment from late Tuesday night.

Six of the 15 cars that left the track went into the Mississippi River. Two of those six cars have broken through the ice.

One of those cars was hauling sodium chlorate, which is found in a variety of commercial herbicides. Sheriff Mark Inglett said it doesn’t appear to be leaking. Another car was carrying grain.

That conflicts some with what a railroad spokesman said around 10:30 a.m. today, that the tanker cars which went through the ice were carrying soybean oil.

A hazardous materials team from Winona and the U.S. Coast Guard’s Pollution Response Unit were called to the scene.

of the cars in the water contains grain. 

The other is carrying sodium chlorate. 

Sheriff Mark Inglett says it doesn’t appear to be leaking. 

A hazardous materials team from Winona and the U.S. Coast Guard’s Pollution Response Unit were called to the scene. 

\Only one car apparently leaked anything and that car happened to be on land, leaking a small amount of a salt-like chemical, apparently.

No word on how or why the cars spilled off the track. Heavy equipment is clearing the accident site, removing damaged rails.

A similar derailment happened in roughly the same area along Hwy. 26 in July of 2008 when 27 cars went off the track and some ethanol was spilled from tank cars.