If you’ve traveled down Highway 41 from Pembroke heading towards Trenton lately, then you’ve undoubtedly seen the remnants of the train that derailed at the end of 2025, and last week, agencies held a meeting to discuss the event and where they are now.
Ash Groves is the Emergency Management Director for Todd County, and he and Trenton Fire Chief John Stahl gathered together the numerous volunteer fire departments, EMS, farmers and CSX representatives that helped on December 30, 2025, when 31 train cars derailed near the crossing with Tress Shop Road.
That derailment results in a shelter-in-place being issued at the time and hazmat operations being conducted after molten sulfur that was being hauled spilled, sending a plume of hazardous smoke into the air. No one was injured in that event, and the air was deemed safe a few hours later.
Clearing the roadway took a few more days after that, though the railway was cleared pretty quickly. Now, clean up continues, with Groves saying most of the remaining cars have been broken down, and they hope to have everything returned to normal by the end of March.
There’s still no word on what caused the derailment, with Groves saying it could be quite some time before the National Transportation Safety Board releases their findings.
Groves says while there are areas that could see improvement, he was very proud of the response from local agencies, saying the volunteer fire departments of Todd County can stand shoulder to a paid department any day.
Several topics were discussed at the meeting, including getting all county scanners and radios up-to-date, getting responders outfitted with information about how to quickly identified chemicals that a train is hauling, how to streamline communications between individuals and more.