Driver gets a close-up look at Custer train derailment: ‘I knew it was time to leave’
When Kyle Smythe noticed that the plume coming from a nearby train rail car was not steam on a cold December morning, he knew it was time to move along.
Smythe was one of the area workers driving along Portal Way soon after a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire around 11:40 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 22. The derailment sent a plume of smoke into the air and prompted an evacuation of residents and visitors within a half-mile of the incident.
Smythe stopped to take a few pictures, noting that he had never been close to a derailment. Then he saw the flames from at least one of the cars.
“I was interested, but I knew it was time to leave,” Smythe said in a telephone interview with The Bellingham Herald.
Smythe said he’s a student at Western Washington University, studying energy science. Recently, in one of his classes, they had been learning about the transportation of fuel, debating the pros and cons of oil shipment by train or by pipeline.
“It was pretty crazy seeing this,” given what his class was talking about, Smythe said, especially since a gas pipeline also exploded in Bellingham in 1999.
This story was originally published December 22, 2020 at 3:33 PM.
CORRECTION: The type of pipeline that exploded in Bellingham in 1999 was corrected Dec. 29, 2020.
