Union Pacific Trains Collide, Derail, Strand Hundreds at Charity Event
(Arlington, Texas – October 1, 2011)
An eastbound Union Pacific Railroad freight train rear-ended a stopped UPRR freight in Arlington, TX Saturday night about 9:00 P.M., derailing three locomotives, overturning two cars and derailing three more, and in the process disrupted a Boys & Girls Club of Arlington charity event by blocking the sole exit to the affair and entrapping over 600 attendees at the fund-raiser.
The collision, the sixth on Union Pacific tracks in Arlington, TX in the past dozen years, occurred 100 feet from the event, blocking the Howell Family Farms Event Center’s access to West Division Street, causing officials to detour traffic departing the event through a pasture, a maneuver that required the bringing in of construction equipment to carve out a roadway, delaying evacuation of those at the event for several hours.
