A CSX freight train carrying coal derailed around midnight in Ellicott City, Md., west of Baltimore, killing two people and crushing several cars that were parked nearby in a public lot, according to a press release from the Howard County Police Department.
The police said 21 of the train’s 80 cars jumped the track, and several overturned. Main Street remains shut down to traffic until the spilled coal can be cleaned up.
Two train operators were not harmed in the incident.
An Associated Press report said the two people killed were on the tracks at the time and were not railroad employees.
The cause of the accident is not known. The National Transportation Safety Board has now taken over the investigation.
According to the Baltimore Sun, Tuesday’s derailment is the third accident this month in Maryland involving a CSX train, and the second partial derailment in Howard County, on the railway’s Old Main Line from Relay to Point of Rocks.
On Aug. 8, an intermodal train collided with a vehicle in Rosedale, injuring the car’s driver. Later that day, a single wheel on a car briefly derailed, causing the short train to block a local intersection in Woodstock for several hours. – Eric Kulisch
CSX derailment near Baltimore kills 2
