U.S. 90A back open in Shiner but work continues

Shiner's Avenue E (U.S. Highway 90A) officially reopened to automobile traffic just after 3 p.m. Saturday, four hours shy of having been shut down a full day when a trainload of open-top coal cars derailed Friday evening, leaving downtown Shiner command central for emergency crews from across the county.

Although traffic lanes are open, drivers are urged to proceed with caution through the area as cleanup crews and repair workers will likely be in the area for days still. Roughly a dozen rail cars were still piled high on the railroad's edge Saturday afternoon. The pile of coal more than a story high for a full city block bore testament to many tons of the black rock that spilled out in the heart of Shiner Friday evening in just an instant.

"This is still an active worksite for the crews that are here," Lavaca County Emergency Management Coordinator Egon Barthels said. "Eastbound traffic through the downtown area can proceed in their usual lane, and westbound traffic will be using the typical turn lane, temporarily. Still, we urge everyone to proceed carefully. We've been fortunate so far in that there were no injuries associated with this derailment. We'd hate to make in this far and have them now just because someone wasn't paying attention as they drove through."

Indeed, after working the Shiner scene all night long, several of the state agencies involved tore off at about noontime Saturday toward Gonzales County, where reports of a triple fatality auto accident went out over the many emergency radios on scene. It was a stark reminder, Barthels said, of just how much worse the Shiner incident could have been. 

It appeared that the problem began on the city's north side, coming into Shiner from Moulton. Large gouges were evident in the in the cross timbers of the tracks from about 16th Street crossing, looking down the tracks from where they pass behind the Spoetzl Brewery.

Local police shared on Saturday afternoon that one of the massive steel axles, which keep the cars on their rails, was still lodged in the back fence behind brewery.

"The wheel of the train was smoking when it came around the corner," Ashley Burns shared, who says she witnessed the derailment from that very same 16th Street crossing. "Then the wheel came off and everything unfolded from there."

Unfold, it indeed did. By the time that damaged car like made the downtown area, roughly a dozen or so rail cars had left the tracks at various angles, folding at least one of the cars in half before train was able to bring everything to a stop, slinging cars off both sides of the tracks and spilling their contents where they came to rest.

"I was the first car on the Palace Saloon/Bank side of (the U.S. 90 crossing)," Kelly Chandler shared to the Gazette's Facebook page. "It was very scary! Thank God I never pull right up to the white line."

Mimi Schaefer was another who had a front row seat to the derailment. She said she was about a car away from it all on Avenue E, between the Palace Saloon and First National Bank Buildings. "It was the most unbelievable thing I’ve ever seen," she said. "The axles were just snapping right off. I'm so very grateful that no one was injured and even more happy that these weren’t chemical cars. A lot of us wouldn’t be here in that case.

"I had an angel with me," Schaefer added. "I was going so slow, and I didn’t go up close like I normally do. It was like something held me back — like don’t go up there — Crazy!"

Judy Wallek Stridde said she was there, too. "We watched right at the tracks on the east side. We were the first car at the tracks. I think I’ve finally stopped shaking," she posted to the Gazette's page midmorning Saturday.

"We were in the pool when it happened," shared Caig Fric. "We thought it was coming through the property. It was crazy, and a great example of why not to park close to the train tracks."

Larissa and Andy Blaschke said they "thought a plane was falling from the sky," she posted. "We live several blocks from the railroad, and the sound was so loud. Terrifying!"

While the amount of work the Union Pacific crews and cleanup contractors pulled off in just 12 hours was simply amazing — especially considering much of it got done while it was still dark — crews reportedly hit a snag in the early afternoon as it appeared they might be ready to set up a new safety signal and crossarm. The old one was ripped to pieces when the train derailed Friday.

One of the crew supervisors said the problem came when they saw the condition of the electrical lines that run beneath the highway. The line, which includes dozens of finger width cables all massed together in one really thick line — roughly the width of a grown man's leg — looked like a bird's nest from where each of those separate smaller cables were literally torn apart.

It would need to be replaced, the railroad man told firemen, and despite the fact a boring machine had just arrived on scene, it could be hours before the specialists arrived to locate what all might exist in the few feet that was the boring machine's path.

It could be hours before those crews arrived, the railroad man told firemen. Then, they'd still have to do the work. That part alone could carry on over into Monday or Tuesday, he said. As far as hauling off all the coal and the twisted remains of those rail cars, he said that might be another week or more still.

That was when the responders still on scene — whittled down to just a handful by midafternoon Saturday, including Shiner Fire Chief Billy Petru, assistant chief/EMS director Michael Furrh, fireman and school board member Brandon Siegel, fireman Jason Shows, and Barthels — asked about reopening the road. After all, most had been up for about 36 hours at that point and needed a night's rest.

And within the hour, they were able to do so.

Contacts to Union Pacific, identified as the primary media contacts for this incident, remained unanswered as of Saturday evening.