Train cars derail
Published 10:35 pm Friday, April 10, 2009
Four train cars derailed Thursday morning on the train tracks behind Dollar Farm Products on Dothan Road.
At around 11 a.m., two freight cars and two tanker cars that were at the end of a train traveling east on the tracks overturned onto their sides on the north side of the tracks.
No one was injured when the train cars derailed.
According to a Bainbridge Public Safety incident report, the incident may have occurred due to an approximately six-inch break in the tracks.
The two tanker cars were carrying non-hazardous oil used in the pulpwood industry and the two freight cars were carrying wood chips.
CSX officials stated the contents of the rail cars would have to be removed prior to getting the cars back on the tracks. CSX employees worked throughout the day and night on Thursday to unload and upright the cars.
On Friday, CSX workers replaced the damaged section of the track from the derailment, uplifting large segments of track and trestle and replacing them.
Drug and firearm arrest made
A Cairo woman was recently arrested on drug and firearm charged in Bainbridge.
On April 8, Decatur County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Cox conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle that matched a description given in a “be on the lookout” dispatch out of Grady County. According to incident reports, the vehicle’s information confirmed it was the car law enforcement officers were looking for.
The driver, Latoya Brown, 31, of Cairo, was found to have a suspended license.
The passenger in the vehicle, Bobby Lee Washington Jr., 32, of 815 Hall St. in Bainbridge, was arrested on a warrant for a probation violation on the original charge of theft by taking a motor vehicle.
When officers searched the vehicle they discovered a loaded 9 mm pistol beneath the driver’s seat as well as a test tube and small plastic bag, both containing suspected cocaine.
Brown was arrested and charged with driving without license on person, no insurance, possession of a firearm while trying to commit a crime and illegal possession of a controlled substance.
Local firefighters respond to major fire
Some firefighters from Decatur County responded to a major fire in Whigham on Friday afternoon. The Climax Volunteer Fire Department was among many firefighters who responded to a large-scale fire that broke out shortly before 3 p.m. at the Farmer’s Peanuts warehouse off U.S. 84 in Whigham.