Thirty Tons Of Ammonium Nitrate Missing

Jul 08, 2023

May 18, 2023 |

Photo – Train – Bigfoot99 file photo

Crazy story out of California with origins in Cheyenne: A rail shipment carrying 60,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate, used as a fertilizer but also in explosives, are missing from a rail shipment that was due to arrive in California this week from Wyoming.

Bay Area public radio station KQED reported that the railcar loaded with 30 tons of the chemical left Cheyenne on April 12. The car was found to be empty after it arrived two weeks later at a rail stop in the Mojave Desert, according to a short incident report from the explosives firm that made the shipment.

The company, Dyno Nobel, made the report May 10 to the federal National Response Center, or NRC. The report also appeared last week in an NRC database of California incidents managed by the state office of Emergency Services last Wednesday.

Dyno Nobel says it believes the material — transported in pellet form in a covered hopper car, similar to those used to ship coal — fell from the car on the way to a rail siding called Saltdale, about 30 miles from the town of Mojave in eastern Kern County.

Ammonium nitrate was the explosive in the massive bomb used in the Oklahoma City terror attack of 1995. It was also the substance that caused a deadly explosion in a warehouse in the port of Beirut, Lebanon, in 2020.

Foul play is not suspected yet, but the loss of a hazardous chemical is just the latest rail problem in the past several months. In February, a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, eventually leading to a massive explosion that spread potentially hazardous substances to the surrounding community.

The official statement from the railroad company states, ""The railcar was sealed when it left the Cheyenne facility, and the seals were still intact when it arrived in Saltdale. The initial assessment is that a leak through the bottom gate on the railcar may have developed in transit."

A Federal Railroad Administration representative, though, says the investigation points to one of the hopper car gates not being properly closed. Or that was the entry point of anyone looking to steal the load of explosive material.

Dyno Nobel says the trip lasted two weeks and included multiple stops. The company says it had "limited control" over the railcar as Union Pacific moved it through the country. It says the railcar is being transported back to Wyoming for inspection; and it says it hopes to understand how the shipment was lost and will work to prevent something similar happening again.