CHENEY – Cheney police had a busy afternoon last Thursday, Sept. 26, dealing with a variety of transportation issues.
The first involved a Washington Eastern grain train that was reported stopped on the tracks in the north part of the city. According to a police report, the train, fully loaded with grain from the Highland Grain LLC’s transloader facility near Four Lakes, became disabled around 12:45 p.m., blocking the intersection of State Route 904 and Betz Road along with the crossings at Cheney-Spokane Road, Pine Street and Cheney-Spangle Road.
Washington Eastern operations manager Gary Durr said the 115-car train lost a knuckle on the coupler of the 36th car behind the engine. The coupler, known as a Janney coupler, automatically locks cars or locomotives together without a rail worker having to get between the cars and perform the function manually, reducing a major cause of injuries.
Durr, who was operating as the conductor on the train, said the knuckle lost part of a device that pulls apart when de-coupling, sending the train into an emergency stop. The railroad has a system established to immediately contact local law enforcement agencies and the state Department of Transportation when such a situation occurs, Durr said.
After stopping, Durr walked the length of the train to make sure there were no derailments and set hand brakes because that portion of the run into Cheney is actually downhill.
“There’s a lot of process we have to do on the railroad for safety reasons,” he added.
The device had to be replaced before the train could resume its run, Durr said, something that took about an hour. In the meantime, police Sgt. Nate Conley said officers provided traffic control at the intersections until repairs were done and the train could move again.
“The roadways were clear at 1:51 p.m.,” Conley said in an email.
Unfortunately that didn’t last long. Stuck in the traffic jam create by the stalled train, the driver of a Spokane Transit Authority Route 66 bus headed to Cheney contacted his dispatch and requested approval to attempt a turnaround of the articulated bus in order to try another route into the city.
STA communications manager Brandon Rapez-Betty said in an email dispatch gave him the go ahead to turn around.
“In the midst of that maneuver, the roadway’s dirt shoulder gave way causing the bus to shift/slide partially off the road, elevating the front end of the bus off the ground,” Rapez-Betty said.
That accident created more traffic issues, and Conley said officers were again on scene at 2:22 p.m. to assist with traffic control. Two tow trucks eventually arrived and pulled the bus onto the northbound shoulder where it was eventually towed from the scene.
“The officer cleared that scene at 3:03 p.m.,” Conley said.
Rapez-Betty said there were no injuries among the 16 passengers on the bus. A relief bus picked them up and continued with the route that terminated at the K Street Station on 1st Street near Mitchell’s Harvest Foods.
John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].
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