Today, the Bremen Fire Department is standing by as servicemen transfer 30,000 gallons of flammable butane gas from a tank car damaged during a train derailment last Tuesday along Highway 78 near Tallapoosa.

Bremen Fire Chief Clark Farr said federal regulations require the wrecked car be moved to the nearest off-rail site, which is in Bremen.

At 8 a.m., workers began the project Farr expects to take mostly the entire day to finish. The project will take place between Church Street and Sewell Road on Tallapoosa Street west, which runs parallel to Highway 78.

Farr said the project shouldn’t interfere with traffic and says residents and commuters should not be alarmed by the unusual task.

“Workers will open the valve, then vapors inside of the tank will be ignited and burn for about four hours, making a humming sound,” he explained.

Farr said the process will continue as the inside of the tank will be cleaned, then vacuumed off.

“When the tank is cleaned, they’ll (workers) safely haul it or put it back on the rail and get it repaired,” he added. “We’re looking at maybe a 12-hour deal.”

Though Farr intends for things to run smoothly, he said the fire department has an evacuation plan in place for the community in case a problem arises while the gas is being transferred.

“We’ll direct people to the Bremen multi-purpose building on Pine Street and the (Bremen) Recreation Department has vans that will provide transportation,” he said.

Meanwhile, Farr said fire department employees traveled throughout the community a few days ago to give people an early notification of the project.

According information compiled last week, the Norfolk Southern rail road company reported the train derailment to the Haralson County Fire Department, who asked the department to remain on standby while they performed an initial cleaned up at the site.

After doing some air monitoring, Haralson County Fire said the derailment didn’t cause any gas leaks and was “no danger to the community at any time.”

Norfolk Southern was recently unavailable at press time to provide a response as to what caused the train derailment.