JASPER, Ala. (WIAT) – The National Transportation Safety Board says Saturday’s train derailment in Jasper will not be a part of its special safety investigation.

This is not the city of Jasper’s first train derailment. Jasper Fire and Rescue says fifteen years ago, it responded to a derailment off 3rd Avenue.

“It’s always extremely frightening because there’s really nothing you can do to 100% prepare for something like that until you get there, until you know what you have,” says Jasper Fire Chief Dante Fields.

The fire department says the city was lucky Saturday night’s train derailment happened away from residential areas and no hazardous material cars were involved.

“It happened in a very sparsely populated area,” says Jasper Mayor David O’Mary. “Had there been hazardous material, there’s a drainage area there, that could’ve created problems.”

O’Mary says while the wreckage is still there off Old Russellville Road, the track is clear and open again for trains.

“It’ll take some time to deal with the wreckage and move it along but rail traffic has been restored,” says O’Mary.

The Jasper Fire Department says with the recent frequency of train derailments and history of a derailment in the city, they were wondering if another would happen.

“There’s quite a few things that can go wrong. It doesn’t take a whole lot to mess up something with that much weight, with that much speed and with that much traffic,” says Fields. “It doesn’t take a whole lot to have numerous things that could go wrong and it just so happened that this was one of those times.”

The Jasper Fire Department says it seems like the train derailment was caused by part of the track getting washed out from the rain.