{"id":128060,"date":"2026-05-07T13:52:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fuel-spill-from-train-truck-collision-highlights-dangers-of-moving-oil-by-rail\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T15:38:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T21:38:20","slug":"fuel-spill-from-train-truck-collision-highlights-dangers-of-moving-oil-by-rail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fuel-spill-from-train-truck-collision-highlights-dangers-of-moving-oil-by-rail\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuel spill from train-truck collision highlights dangers of moving oil by rail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A collision between a Canyon Spirit passenger train and a fuel truck in Rifle on Wednesday shut down Highway 6 and Union Pacific\u2019s train tracks. (Courtesy of Garfield County Sheriff\u2019s Office, via Vail Daily)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A fuel spill following a tanker-truck, passenger-train collision in Rifle Wednesday morning put a spotlight on the dangers of transporting fossil fuels in and around Union Pacific\u2019s train tracks that follow the Colorado River through Eagle County.<\/p>\n

As rail advocates continue to beat the drum for increased passenger-rail service between Denver and Salt Lake City, one success story they\u2019ve pointed to \u2013 besides Amtrak\u2019s daily California Zephyr between Chicago and California\u2019s Bay Area \u2013 has been the high-end Armstrong Collection.<\/p>\n

Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Armstrong operates the Canyon Spirit train between Denver and Salt Lake City with stops in Glenwood Springs and Moab, Utah. The Canyon Spirit was involved in Wednesday\u2019s collision, with no passenger injuries reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are aware of an incident has taken place on our Canyon Spirit train this morning, which has caused the train to come to a stop,\u201d Armstrong spokesperson Dallas Carlson wrote in an email Wednesday afternoon. \u201cAt this point, thankfully, no injuries have been reported by our guests or employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of our guests and employees have now been detrained and are traveling via motorcoach to Moab, Utah, where the train was originally traveling to,\u201d Carlson added. \u201cEmergency services are on site, and we are working with the authorities. Our thoughts are with everyone involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Garfield County Sheriff\u2019s Department Facebook page on Wednesday morning, Highway 6 in Rifle was closed in both directions \u201cdue to a crash involving a train and a tanker truck. Emergency crews are on scene and working the incident. At this time only minor injuries have been reported.\u201d<\/p>\n

The amount of damage to the Union Pacific tracks was unclear initially, with a Union Pacific spokesperson referring inquiries to the Canyon Spirit operators. Canyon Spirit reported it will provide\u202fadditional\u202finformation as it becomes available on its website at https:\/\/www.canyonspirit.com\/travel-updates.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmtrak service by Trains 5 & 6 is disrupted by a temporary track closure on the Union Pacific route in Colorado,\u201d Amtrak\u2019s Marc Magliari reported in an email. \u201cAmtrak passengers are being transported on chartered buses between Grand Junction and Denver, with no service today at Granby and Fraser\/Winter Park.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither the two Armstrong Collective trains nor Amtrak\u2019s California Zephyr stop on their way through Eagle County but they are a common sight for boaters on the Upper Colorado River \u2013 as are oil trains transporting Utah crude in heated tanker cars on their way to Gulf Coast refineries.<\/p>\n

Fearing oil spills and wildfires, Eagle County officials have spent more than $1 million suing to stop an increase in oil-train traffic on the line that runs through remote canyons before heading down to Denver after transiting the state\u2019s Moffat Tunnel at Winter Park Resort.<\/p>\n

Prices for the two- and three-day Canyon Spirit and Rocky Mountaineer trains run between $1,700 and nearly $3,000.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Vail Daily, visit www.vaildaily.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

passenger injuries were reported<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":128061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6401],"tags":[1820,28,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-128060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-news","tag-dh-trueanthem","tag-headlines","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128084,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128060\/revisions\/128084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128060"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=128060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}