SEATTLE - It was a massive exhaust plume from three freight locomotives that filled up the inside the mile-long railroad tunnel running under downtown Seattle on Tuesday morning.
The amount of smoke even triggered a response by railroad and Seattle Fire Dept investigators.
Gus Melonas, the spokesman for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad told KING 5 News this afternoon that the smoke was diesel exhaust from a lashup of three freight locomotives that had stopped inside the tunnel then started up again. He says normally the air from Puget Sound pushes any residual smoke out of the mile-long tunnel that begins just north of King Street Station on the south and ends near the Seattle waterfront. He says it's not known why the locomotives that were not pulling any railroad cars had stopped inside.
While smoke inside the tunnel is normal from passing trains, this plume got everybody's attention Tuesday morning as the last Sounder commuter train arriving from Everett slowed to a virtual stop because for a brief period the engineer complained he couldn't see ahead of the train. Passengers complained of heavy amounts of smoke that came inside.
Sound Transit, which operates the Sounder commuter trains says that the crew should have made an announcement to passengers about the heavy smoke, and that the transit agency will make that a policy in the future.
The Seattle Fire Department says there was no fire, which had been suspected early on. The fire department does operate a truck with a special fan to push or pull air through the tunnel if people are ever trapped inside.
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