PORTLAND, Ore. — A freight train derailed Monday morning on a historic bridge in Portland, prompting concerns about its structural integrity weeks after a ship crash took down the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
Officials announced the closure of the Steel Bridge after a train derailed on the bridge’s lower deck around 6 a.m. PDT. It was not immediately clear when the bridge might reopen to traffic.
No injuries or hazardous material concerns were immediately reported.
PF&R HazMat team en route to assist in determining contents of train cars and also to determine if there are any HazMat issues. All traffic shut down at both ends of bridge. This is a shared RR track for @UnionPacific and @BNSFRailway.
— Portland Fire & Rescue (@PDXFire) April 29, 2024
The Union Pacific train derailed on the east side of the bridge, KGW reported. The derailment included two empty lumber cars, which fully derailed, and four other cars that partially derailed, according to Portland Fire & Rescue.
At a news conference on Monday morning, agency spokesperson Lt. Laurent Picard said that when authorities arrived at the bridge on Monday morning, they found that “the entire Steel Bridge was taken up by the train,” KATU reported.
“The entire bridge is blocked,” Picard said. “The issue here is that one of the fully derailed cars is leaning against a support column of the bridge, so in an abundance of caution, we closed down the entire bridge to all modes of traffic.”
The bridge accommodates trains, bicycles, pedestrians, cars and the light rail, according to officials.
“An additional issue is the bridge can’t be raised, obviously, so it’s also going to affect the traffic of vessels on the Willamette River as well,” Picard said.
Union Pacific engineers were expected to assess the bridge’s structural stability on Monday. Picard said that recovery efforts will be complicated by the area where the train derailed.
“Obviously, it’s hard to get trains back on a track in a normal, open railway, and it’s only going to be that much more challenging given the space restraints on the bridge itself,” he said.
Officials did not immediately have an estimate for the bridge’s reopening.
“This is going to be a long, drawn-out incident with multiple agencies involved,” Picard said. “It’s going to be a long time before this bridge is open again, so it will affect the morning commute and it could affect commutes throughout the day.”
Built in 1912, the Steel Bridge is the world’s only telescoping double-deck vertical lift bridge. The lower deck, which carries trains, bicycles and pedestrians, can be raised independently from the upper deck, which is open to cars and the light rail, allowing for small vessels to pass without stopping vehicular traffic, according to transportation officials.
On Monday, Picard called the span “the hardest working bridge in the city.”
“There’s really no other bridge in the city that has as many modes of transportation across it as this,” he said. “So, it is definitely a significant incident, and the issue here is it’s going to be a protracted incident.”
The incident happened just over a month after a ship struck a support for the Key Bridge in Baltimore, killing six people and sending tons of debris into the water below. Officials continue work to recover from the incident, which blocked the shipping channel leading to one of the nation’s key automobile hubs.
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