Train Derails, Closes Streets near Shrewsbury and Landsdowne Avenues

Shrewsbury officials closed several streets near Shrewsbury and Landsdowne avenues due to a train derailment that occurred at about 10:30 p.m. on Saturday, the stltoday.com news website reported.

By noon today, the news website reported that the train and a derailed car were gone and that officials were waiting for equipment to remove a damaged walkway and other debris from the bridge deck.

The 7200 block of Landsdowne remained closed to traffic, the website reported.

Shrewsbury Fire Chief William Fox said, to a Post-Dispatch reporter on Saturday night, that the train derailed after leaving a yard at McCausland Avenue and while crossing a bridge on Murdoch Avenue.

Fox said at least one train car is a tanker holding the cleaning agent ethyleneamines. The tanker was not leaking, he told the Post-Dispatch reporter.

The car was taken to the train yard this morning, the website reported.

By noon today, Shrewsbury Police Lt. Brian Catlett said railroad officials told him one train car was off the tracks before leaving the yard. The train travelled about three-quarters of a mile before the off-track car struck a wooden walkway beside the track on the bridge.

Five houses east of the tracks were evacuated as a precaution and MetroLink service was shut down at Maplewood on the southbound Shrewsbury line, the news website reported late last night.

By noon, railroad engineers said the concrete and steel trestle bridge were safe for train traffic, Catlett told a Post-Dispatch reporter. MetroLink trains are running through the area again.

This article includes updated news from the stltoday.com as of 12:30 p.m. Sunday.