HUNTINGTON, W.Va. -- The Sunoco Chemicals plant officials at Neal are pointing a finger at a Norfolk Southern Corp. train crew as the cause of an accident that derailed or damaged four railroad cars Wednesday night and forced the evacuation of about 35 people in the Dock’s Creek area, according to the Herald-Dispatch.

"The locomotive was shoving 23 cars into the plant from the south," Plant Manager Mark W. Anderson said this afternoon. "It looks like when they came into the plant, we were trying to get into position with our trackmobile to receive the cars."

The moving cars was supposed to proceed on a straight section of plant-owned track, and the operator of the trackmobile was preparing to align a switch to make that movement possible. But the cars approached the switch so quickly, he didn’t have time to throw it.

"They came in early on us," Anderson said. "We weren’t ready."

The cars proceeded through the diverging route and crashed into the trackmobile, which in turn rammed a string of empty covered hoppers that were spotted alongside two polypropylene silos for loading.

"There were no injuries, but the guy at the switch was pretty shaken up," Anderson said.

NS spokesman Susan Bland said the railroad is still investigating the cause of the accident.

Two of the standing cars derailed and a third was damaged. One of the derailed cars flipped over on its side. The other leaned at about a 60-degree angle against the southernmost of two silos, buckling it and making a small hole through which polypropylene plastic pellets -- the plant’s finished product -- spilled to the ground. The listing car merely scraped the northernmost silo.

The first of the 23 moving cars was a tank car loaded with 30,000 gallons of liquefied petroleum gas, an extremely flammable mixture that can easily explode. That car -- the one that forced the evacuations -- derailed, but remained upright.

There were concerns about the structural integrity of the damaged silo, lest it fall on the car during the rerailing process and cause a spark that might cause an explosion. But the R.J. Corman Co. of Cross Lanes, W.Va., rerailed the car at about 4:15 a.m. Thursday, and that’s when people were allowed to return to their homes.

"We started evacuating at about 9:30, and let them go back at about 4:30, about 20 minutes after we cleared up," said Lt. Jamie Stoner of the Kenova Volunteer Fire Department, who served as incident commander. Betsy Ratcliff, interim chapter manager of the Western West Virginia chapter of the American Red Cross, said only a few of those evacuated showed up at the makeshift shelter at the Kenova Volunteer Fire Department -- and they didn’t stay long.

"There were two families that came and went on to a motel, and another family went to stay with friends," she said. "No one stayed for more than a few minutes."

Ratcliff said the Red Cross dispatched an emergency response vehicle to the intersection of U.S. 52 and W.Va. 75 near the derailment scene and served snacks and coffee to about 40 people, mostly emergency workers and media personnel.

"They went through four cambros of coffee," she said.

Corman got the covered hopper cars back on the track by noon Thursday.

Anderson said that the trackmobile, one of three it owns, is unusable.

"We’re going to try to send it out for repair this afternoon," he said Thursday.

Plant production was not affected.