Freight train carrying fertilizer derails in central Canada

Nearly five dozen cars of a freight train carrying potash derailed Thursday morning in Canada's central province of Manitoba with no casualties reported, local media said.

The Canadian National Railway Company (CNR) train, bound for the United States, came off the tracks 16 km west of Rivers, Manitoba, at about 9:30 a.m. local time.

CNR spokeswoman Kelly Svendson said late Thursday that no one was injured and the cleanup was continuing after 56 cars on the eastbound potash train jumped the tracks.

She said there was no word on how long the cleanup of potash, normally a non-dangerous commodity, would take and trains were being rerouted in the interim.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) said officials with Canada's Transportation Safety Board had been called in to investigate.

Passengers aboard Via Rail trains bound for the Vancouver Olympic Games, which begin Friday, were stranded in Winnipeg because of the derailment, CBC said.

CNR, headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, is the largest railway in Canada in terms of both revenue and the physical size of its rail network and is currently Canada's only transcontinental railway company, spanning Canada from the Atlantic coast in Nova Scotia to the Pacific coast in British Columbia.

Source: Xinhua