PACIFIC, Mo. — A wire service reports that dozens of coal cars were derailed and two crew members hurt in eastern Missouri on Thursday when a coal train rear-ended another one and a third train hit the wreckage, Union Pacific Corp. said.
The three-way accident spilled coal onto a nearby highway, closing it, and also disrupted Amtrak passenger service between St. Louis and Kansas City.
Union Pacific said a three-locomotive train pulling 133 cars of coal from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin rear-ended a similar 119-car coal train stopped on the tracks west of St. Louis near the town of Pacific. A third empty 104-car train that was headed back to Wyoming in the opposite direction then slammed into the wreckage.
Spokesman John Bromley said 60 loaded cars derailed and a number of them spilled their contents. He said the engineer and conductor of the train that hit the stopped train suffered minor injuries.