YORK COUNTY, S.C. -- Crews worked clean up an accident on the Norfolk Southern Railroad that saw 16 rail cars thrown off the tracks with two of them going over a bridge into Steele Creek.
The accident happened Friday evening just miles from the popular South Carolina Strawberry Festival in Fort Mill.
No one was hurt in the accident, and no evacuations were ordered. According to York County Emergency Management, there was some diesel fuel that leaked but there were no materials that put the public in danger.
The freight train was carrying grain and paper products.
"I would suspect [it's going to be] at least days before it's all cleaned up," said Chuck Haynes, director of York County Emergency Management. “It’s going to take a long time, it’s a complex environment to work in."
Officials paved dirt roads inside Anne Springs Close Greenway in order to clear the way for cranes to remove the rail cars off the embankment and lift the two cars out of the creek.
Unfortunately, this isn't the first train accident of the year in South Carolina. Back in February, two people died and 90 were hurt in Lexington County after an Amtrak train collided with another train after a safety signal failure.
Lives were spared Friday evening, but there was a lot of work to be done before the Norfolk Southern Railroad would be back on track. The cause of the derailment remained under investigation.