An rather unusual sight meet rafters on the Lower Clark Fork River, Montana. After a train derailed, heading from Wichita, Kansas, to the aircraft manufacturer Boeing´s plant in Renton, Washington, three Boeing 737 fuselages ended up in the river:
Hot weather and tough terrain is to blame for a bogged down cleanup after a train derailed and tossed three fuselages into the Lower Clark Fork River on Thursday.
The train wreck is turning into a scenic destination for rafters along the popular route where the wide canyon slows to a crawl and lets people get a good look at the fuselages.
“It’s kind of a surreal thing that comes around the corner. You would never expect it,” Joshua Flanagan, owner of a Spokane-based rafting company, Wiley E. Waters, told the Daily News.
The plane parts were on their way to Boeing’s Renton, Wash., plant from Wichita, Kan., but 19 of the Montana Rail Link freight cars derailed and lost its expensive cargo west of Missoula. There were six fuselages total, but the others luckily dropped near the tracks above.
Crews reopened the railroad line Saturday night, but fetching the big parts in the river is “going considerably slower than we hoped,” Montana Rail Link spokeswoman Lynda Frost told the Daily News. “By day’s end, we will be lucky to get one up from the river.”
Featured image: Photograph by Kyle Massick. Image via NBC News.