High winds turned into a transit nightmare on Dec. 29 when a tree toppled onto MARTA’s southbound tracks near Lindbergh, derailing a train, heavily damaging equipment and knocking out service for days. About 118 people were on board. Staff and riders reported no injuries.
The derailment shut down Red and Gold line service for roughly 74 hours while crews pulled the train back onto the rails and repaired the battered stretch of track.
According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the southbound train left the rails around 9 a.m. on Dec. 29 after it was “struck by a fallen tree” as it headed out from Lindbergh Station. A MARTA police incident report says passengers were moved onto a rescue train, and no injuries were reported by either riders or staff. The paper notes the agency first warned customers about delays but stopped short of calling the situation a derailment at the time.
MARTA spokesperson Stephany Fisher confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that high winds toppled the tree. “The tree damaged the tracks, wayside equipment and caused the derailment of the front axle of the train,” Fisher said in an email quoted in the report. She added that crews shifted to single-tracking between Lindbergh and Arts Center so workers could rerail the train and repair the southbound track equipment.
Service Response And Repair
MARTA crews spent the New Year’s holiday cleaning up the mess: removing the fallen tree, rerailing the train and fixing the damaged wayside equipment. Full Red and Gold line service returned roughly 74 hours later, on Jan. 1.
The agency said it pushed out service notices to venues hosting New Year’s events and reported no service impacts during the celebrations, despite the derailment’s timing. The incident report was later posted to MARTA’s public records portal at marta.nextrequest.com after an unknown requester filed for the documents.
Reporting Rules And Safety Context
In the federal rulebook, derailments are no small thing. The Federal Transit Administration classifies any rail-vehicle derailment as a major safety event, and transit agencies must report those major incidents to federal and state oversight agencies.
Safety datasets from the Federal Transit Administration show MARTA has recorded multiple derailments since 2014. The national database can lag behind real time, which is why the Dec. 29 derailment may not yet appear in the federal totals.
What Riders Can Do
Riders who were on the affected train or who want more detail can request the incident report through MARTA’s open-records portal at marta.nextrequest.com or contact MARTA customer service for assistance.
For broader questions about safety trends or follow-up investigations, the Federal Transit Administration and the Georgia Department of Transportation are the oversight bodies that review major transit safety events like derailments.
Bottom Line
MARTA says no one was hurt and service was restored in a matter of days, but the derailment is a pointed reminder that weather-driven debris can do outsized damage to rail infrastructure and trigger multi-day headaches for riders. The newly posted incident report now offers a clearer timeline for investigators and for passengers still looking for answers.
