DURANGO SUED FOR $25M BY US FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
American narrow gauge railroad faced with huge payout after 53,000-acre blaze last summer.
America’s federal government is suing the Durango & Silverton Railroad for $25m, after a lineside fire destroyed 53,000 acres of forest last summer.
The US Attorney’s Office filed a lawsuit in the US District Court against the Colorado narrow gauge line and its owner, American Heritage Railways, on July 2. It claims that one of the railroad’s coal-fired steam locomotives caused the ‘416 Fire’, which ignited next to the line at Shalona Hill on June 1 last year and spread across the
San Juan National Forest, finally being extinguished on November 29.
The local authorities imposed fire restrictions that prevented the railroad from running any steam-hauled trains from June until mid-July, forcing the line to cancel around 70,000 reservations.
The lawsuit states: “This is a civil action to recover monetary damages incurred by the United States in connection with the 416 Fire. Federal fire investigators have determined that the 416 Fire was ignited by particles emitted from an exhaust stack on a coal-burning
steam train engine owned and operated by Defendants. The United States suffered significant damages, including expenses in its efforts to suppress the 416 Fire and to rehabilitate the public lands damaged by the 416 Fire, a rehabilitation process that still continues.”
US Attorney Jason Dunn said: “This fire caused significant damage, cost taxpayers millions of dollars and put lives at risk. We owe it to taxpayers to bring this action on their behalf.”
Although the locomotive concerned had been fitted with a spark-arresting screen on its chimney, witnesses stated that the fire began immediately after it had passed. The lawsuit states: “Fire investigators located the origin of the fire as next to the railroad track” and “Federal fire investigators found a collection of numerous, extinguished embers, cinders and ash particles on the ground adjacent to the railroad track, including at the specific point of fire origin.”
It adds: “Examples of fires previously started by Defendants include: the 2012 Goblin Fire (1,000 acres burned); the 2012 Needleton Fire (6 acres burned); the 2002 Schaff II fire (550 acres burned); and the 1994 Mitchell Lakes fire (270 acres burned).
“During the month or months before the June 1 2018 ignition of the 416 Fire, Defendants’ coal-burning steam locomotives had ignited multiple fires along its Durango to Silverton railroad track.”
It is reported that the railroad has acquired two diesel locomotives for use at times of high fire risk, and that it proposes to convert the steam locomotives to oil-firing.
Steam Railway has contacted the railroad for comment.