May 19, 2025
Local News

Emerson quarry a hotbed of activity

By BY DAVID

The twisted wreckage of a grain train derailment that happened around 9 a.m. Friday prompted Union Pacific Railroad to convoy about 60 trucks full of gravel back and forth between the Alliance Materials quarry in the village of Emerson, west of Sterling, to the accident site near Normandy, about 25 miles away. The trucks ran all day and all night Friday until about 10 p.m. Saturday. No one was injured in the pileup; UP repaired 1,000 feet of track but replaced the 1930s-era bridge with a culvert. (Bureau County)

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EMERSON – The quarry in this village west of Sterling is closed nights and weekends, but an exception was made last week.

Friday and Saturday, the Alliance Materials quarry in Emerson was a hotbed of action. Because of a train derailment, Union Pacific used materials from the gravel pit to fix a railroad near Normandy in neighboring Bureau County, nearly 25 miles south of the quarry.

Around 9 a.m. Friday, 32 cars of a train had derailed a mile south of Normandy, damaging a bridge and 1,000 feet of track, Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said. No one was injured; the cars were carrying grain.

The 100-car train had stopped in Sterling and was headed to Texas, Davis said.

The cause of the derailment is under investigation.

Around 3:30 p.m., when the Alliance pit usually closes for the day, Union Pacific started getting gravel from the quarry. The around-the-clock project ended shortly before 10 p.m. the next day.

Union Pacific used an estimated 60 trucks, most of them semis, for the project.

The company decided not to rebuild the 1930s-era bridge because that would have taken too long, Davis said. Rather, it filled the area below with gravel to support the tracks, installing a conduit to let water flow, he said.

The track was replaced, and the railroad reopened around noon Sunday.

“Whenever we’re working on a derailment, we will work around the clock. Typically, the contractors, along with railroad employees, will work 12-hour shifts,” Davis said.

Six trains a day use the line, he said.

It was at least the second train derailment within the last 17 months in Bureau County.

On Dec. 19, 2009, a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train derailed on the east edge of Wyanet as it traveled on the trestle bridge over 1500 East Street. Nineteen of the train’s 92 cars were derailed, including four cars that left the tracks and overturned.

Its cause was determined to be “buff forces generated by improper train handling.”

The Bureau County Republican in Princeton contributed to this story.

Sterling