Train derailment closes Route 5 in West Springfield between Memorial Ave and North End rotaries

WEST SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - A two-mile stretch of Route 5 in West Springfield remains closed by police as they wait for railroad company crews to arrive and determine how to get two derailed chemical tanker cars off the tracks.

West Springfield Police Captain Thomas Wilkinson told 22News that Route 5 is closed between the Memorial rotary and the North End Bridge rotary.

Captain Wilkinson said a tanker car containing a flammable liquid chemical derailed on the train trestle over Route 5 at 6:09 Thursday night.  The trestle crosses Route 5 a little north of the Memorial Avenue Rotary.

"The tanker is leaning on the trestle, but it is not leaking," Captain Wilkinson told 22News, "The trestle sustained some structural damage and that's why we closed Route 5."

Captain Wilkinson said, "the situation is stable.  We're waiting for CSX crews to get here to figure out how to get the cars back on the rails and off the trestle.  It's likely they'll bring in heavy equipment to complete the job."

There are two derailed cars on the trestle, both of them are tankers.  One of them is empty, and one is filled with a flammable chemical whose name is, according to Captain Wilkinson, "too long to try to say."

It's still too early to tell how long it will take to get the train off the tracks, or how long they'll have to keep that part of Route 5 closed to traffic. The highway remained closed into Friday morning, though a parallel set of train tracks that cross the trestle is open to rail traffic.

Watch a live stream of the situation in West Springfield from our 22News Springfield Skycam.

No one was hurt in the derailment, and evacuations were not ordered until late Friday morning, when three streets in the immediate vicinity of the trestle were evacuated.