Saint John Potash Derailment

Potash derailment. Photo by Ron Grant.

 CN derailed some potash cars in Saint John early Tuesday morning. CN 594 was working the Courtenay Bay potash yard and several potash cars went on the ground around 1 AM. Four cars went over on their sides and eight others appeared to be derailed upright. No one was hurt.

Derailed cars and "spare parts". Photo by Ron Grant.

Potash derailment. Photo by Ron Grant.

The derailment happened behind Coastal Tire on Crown Street. CN 5756, CN 2660 and CN 5795 were on the potash terminal end of the train and were therefore trapped by the derailment.

CN 5756 and the rest of CN train 594 stuck behind the derailment. Photo by Ron Grant.

The NB Southern wreck crew was on site by 11:30 AM and CBC reports that by 4 PM six of the eight derailed cars were back on the rails. The spilled potash was being removed at 7 PM and the track is expected to re-open by mid-afternoon on Wednesday.

Repairing the damage. Photo by Ron Grant.

Thanks to the gang at RailsNB for all the news and to Ron Grant for providing the pictures.

Potash Trains

Matt uploaded this video of CN 594, an empty potash train on its way to McCullys to drop the empty cars off.


He's been busy shooting the potash trains. Here's another of his from a month ago.


The trains run from the PotashCorp mine at McCullys outside Sussex, down the CN Sussex subdivision to Saint John and over to the Courtenay Bay wharf. They used to run a mixed bag of CN hoppers but in the past few years they have been using the orange cars seen here.

March 17

After work on Wednesday, I drove up to Fredericton to visit my mom and a good friend of mine. I drove up through Grand Bay-Westfield because I wanted to see if anything had changed in the eight or so months since I had been through there last. The answer: nothing much. :)

However, I did hear about an eastbound freight coming in. I wasn't sure exactly where I wanted to stop, so I was indecisive and moved a couple of times. In the end, I was just about to move again when I heard the horn of an approaching train at Brittain Road in Westfield. I set up quickly and took this video:

NBSR 2318 and slug 008, together with NBSR 2319, pulled a fairly short train of gypsum empties, centerbeam flat empties, and a single boxcar. I was glad to see the slug, finally.

I returned to Saint John at close to midnight. As I was driving past Island Yard, I spotted a train coming into the yard from the west / north. I drove up to where a new overpass is being built by Russell Street and set up. Soon enough I heard the bark of an SD70M-2's horn as CN 8864? and CN 5770 brought a potash train past on the way to Courtenay Bay. I believe this was train 594, which is run occasionally using CN 406's power to ferry potash cars.

They came to a stop so the conductor could cross the street and line the wye switch toward Saint John.

Since it was just before midnight, it was time for me to get to bed to rest up for the next day's work.