1986 Miamisburg train derailment information

At 4:25 pm on July 8, 1986, a 44 car Baltimore and Ohio railroad freight train, traveling at 45 miles per hour, bound south to Cincinnati, derailed near Miamisburg, Ohio, a small city with an industrial history in Montgomery County, southwest of Dayton. Fifteen of the cars derailed on a bridge; these were tank cars containing yellow phosphorus, molten sulfur and tallow. Carrying a chemical used to make rat poison, fireworks and luminescent coatings, one tank car caught fire. This resulted in emission of an estimated 1,000 foot (300 m) high cloud of phosphorus. A subsequent incident caused the largest train accident-triggered evacuation at the time in the United States.^[1][2][3] The accident was the second major rail disaster in Miamisburg within an eight-year period. On September 10, 1978, 15 cars of a Conrail train derailed.^[4]