Saskatchewan police are dealing with a train derailment near Halbrite, reducing Highway 39 traffic to one lane.
Highway Hotline reported the incident on Twitter early Wednesday morning.
Its post said the derailment is slowing down traffic from about 18 kilometres west of Midale to about 26 kilometres east of Weyburn.
Joy Guider lives on farm just outside of Halbrite and can see the derailed train from her yard.
She believes the train went off the tracks Tuesday night and that it was weather related.
“It was about 9 p.m. when the wind got really strong. The train was going past and then all of a sudden it got really noisy,” Guider said.
“I just thought it was the wind, the trees were bent over, but now I’m pretty sure it was the train derailing.”
Guider said about 20-25 Canadian Pacific Railway sea-can cars derailed.
“A freight train has gone through on the tracks very slowly so it appears to me, from what I can see, that the sea-cans and the flat cars they’re on are right off the tracks,” Guider said.
CP confirmed the derailment happened at about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night. The freight train was carrying empty shipping containers.
No crew members were injured during the incident and there are no concerns to public safety, CP said.
The rail line re-opened Wednesday morning, following repairs and necessary safety checks.
Guider said one of the cars is blocking her access to the highway, but fortunately has other ways off her property.
“I do have a road where I can go, a back way off the farm if I had to,” Guider said. “CP has been very good about it. They said if it happens I need to get out of here, they’ll do everything they can to help me.”
Guider said there are several emergency responders on scene along with a number of track hoes.
Halbrite mayor Dwayne Carlson said it’s been a while since anything like this happened in the area.
“We’ve had train derailments, but nothing like this. The only thing close to this is we had a train fire almost 15-20 years ago in about the same area, just further up the tracks,” Carlson said.
Drivers are being told to reduce speed and be prepared to stop, Highway Hotline said in its post.
CP said the incident is under investigation.
Halbrite is about 140 km southeast of Regina.
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