SAN ANTONIO – A freight train carrying a load of Toyota trucks fresh off the assembly line derailed Friday morning on the city's Southwest Side.
Toyota spokeswoman Melissa Sparks said there were about 40 Tacoma and Tundra trucks on board the train.
Sparks said it's too early to tell whether any of the trucks were damaged when the train went off its tracks near Quintana Road and Briggs Avenue.
According to the San Antonio Fire Department, some rail yard workers were preparing the train for its journey, a move called "pushing cars" or "shoving cars," when they ran into trouble.
"Shoving cars is when they get ready to put them on line. They'll pull them apart and push them together to make sure there all hooked together," said SAFD battalion chief Russell Johnson. "Somehow it got away from them, and it started rolling down toward the main track. It hit the derailment track."
Johnson said about 10 train cars jumped the tracks and toppled over. He said the train was not carrying any harmful chemicals, and no one was hurt.
The sight of the derailed train in her neighborhood was a bit alarming to Delilah Gonzalez.
"That kind of freaked me out, because we just left not that long ago. We just went to go get something to eat just down the street," she said. "Thank God we weren't here at this time because we usually pass through this way."
No traffic was able to pass through the area for several hours.
Police shut down several blocks of Quintana Road due to the wreckage nearby and utility lines that were knocked down on the road.
A CPS Energy worker said the thick black wire stretching across the street was a fire optic line and not an electrical wire.
A utility pole nearby that was hit by the train was snapped in two, which caused a power outage for hundreds of people in the area. The outage was expected to last three or four hours.
Police estimated that the cleanup and road closure would extend into the late afternoon.
