Wisconsin Central Derailment
Ensign, Delta County, Mi.
Jan. 6, 2000


For all those that never knew, and thought or called me NUTS! here are the details as provided by the Federal Railroad Administration. This federal web site has changed 3 times in the last year. It uses counter intuitive and badly implemented frame and Java gimmicks that makes it a pain in the brain for some folk to use. I will not waste any more of my life keeping up with the fed's "improvements". If the url below does not work, you may be able to reach a path to the desired page by deleting a level at a time from the given url.

Federal Railroad Administration, FRA Accident/Incident and Inspections Query Page

If anyone has photographs of the mess, I would publish some on this page. If someone has verifiable details of the repair and cleanup costs, I would include them on this page. You will notice the FSA details provide no costs for repairing all the damage, just the value of the destroyed property. I would speculate, from the mess I saw, the cost of repair and cleanup may have exceeded the value of the damaged rolling stock and railroad.


                 *** IMPORTANT NOTICE ***

Collisions, derailments, fires, explosions, acts of God, or other
events involving the operation of railroad on-track equipment
(standing or moving) and causing reportable damages greater than
the reporting threshold for the year in which the accident/incident
occurred must be reported using Form FRA F 6180.54.

Reportable damage includes labor costs and all other costs to repair
or replace in kind damaged on-track equipment, signals, track, track
structures, or roadbed.  Reportable damage does not include the
cost of clearing a wreck, damaged lading, or environmental cleanup
costs, etc.

If the property of more than one railroad is involved in an
accident/incident, the reporting threshold is calculated by including
the damages suffered by all railroads involved.  If the total exceeds
the reporting threshold, a report is required even though an
individual  railroad's damages were below the threshold.

The following report lists those events that a railroad was involved
in, regardless of whether or not that railroad's operations were the
primary reason the accident occurred.  This is done because all
railroads are required to report the extent of their involvement in
the accident, regardless of whether or not there is agreement as to
the cause of the accident.

A form must be completed for each consist  involved in an
accident.  The railroad responsible for the on-track equipment at the
time of the accident, and only that railroad, will report the consist.
In joint operations, if the railroad having track maintenance
responsibility did not also have on-track rail equipment involved, a
report containing the track information must be forwarded.

When multiple reports have been provided in connection with a
single event, these have been grouped together.


=====Accident     1 =========================================================================================

    DERAILMENT                 on Jan 06 2000    Wisconsin Central Ltd. (also Railway)    G4691   <- Report #

Involving  FREIGHT TRAIN       at 2 :50AM
Locos(Total/derailed)   4/0    in Michigan       Wisconsin Central Ltd. (also Railway)    G4691   <- Track Maint rr
 Cars(Total/derailed)  65/14      County of DELTA
Speed 030  Eqp Dmg $168,500         Near or in ENSIGN

....................Track information....................
Main       Damage  $21,270   Milepost 356.5   FRA Class 3                                Kld 0     Inj 0

....Method(s) of operation   ....Cause(s)....
TRACK WARRANT CONTROL        Broken weld (field)

TRAIN SOFD1T-5 WAS TRAVELING WEST ON MAIN LINE TRACK FROM SAU1T STE. MARIE
TO GLADSTONE, MI WHEN THE TRAIN WENT INTO EMERGENCY.  THE CREW STOPPED THEI
R TRAIN AND FOUND THAT 14 CARS HAD DERAILED.  INVESTIGATION INTO THE INCIDE
NT FOUND THAT A BROKEN WELD IN RAIL WAS THE CAUSE OF THE DERAILMENT.  NO IN
JURIES WERE REPORTED.



====================================================================================================================

         --GRAND TOTALS--

Retrieved 1  report(s)

For 1  accident(s) involving     4 locomotives and      65 cars

Causing 0  deaths and 0  injuries
       $168,500 of equipment damage
        $21,270 of track damage

There were 3  cars carrying hazardous material
of which 0  were damaged or derailed, of these 0  had a release.
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