A train derailment on the freight line near Farmborough Heights has scattered wagons along a 1.5-kilometre area.
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At around 5.30am, emergency services were called to the scene, where a number of wagons carrying grain from Cootamundra to the Port Kembla inner harbour had rolled over, spilling the grain on the tracks and trackside ballast.
The train was coming down the escarpment when the accident happened, and while investigations are yet to confirm the cause, it is understood brake failure is a possibility.
SafeWork NSW has been called to the scene and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau is also sending investigators.
It is understood no one was injured in the derailment but ambulance crews assessed a 39-year-old male driver suffering shock in the wake of the derailment.
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He was not transported to hospital.
"The two drivers were spoken to - they were uninjured," Lake Illawarra Police District Inspector Brian Pedersen said.
"A preliminary breath test and drug test were carried out as per their company's protocols."
Insp Petersen said the wagons were in three main areas, spread out over around 1.5 kilometres of the rail line.
"We believe that the weight of the grain is 65 tons per carriage, so we're looking about spillage about two and half thousand tonnes," he said.
"There's no environmental concerns because it's a food product."
He added that there was no damage to either of the locomotives but a number of wagons had been damaged and it was unclear at this stage if they could be repaired on-site or would have to be trucked out.
There is some damage to the tracks and Insp Pedersen said a focus would be for the rail company to repair and clear one of the two rail lines to keep the corridor open.
A spokesman for the Australian Rail Track Corporation, which maintains the rails, said the Moss Vale-Unanderra line was closed until further notice.
Insp Pedersen said the clean-up operation could be problematic.
"The biggest issue is access to the location so they can get trucks up into where the incident is," he said.
"That would obviously speed it up rather than having to ferry everything out and then load them up."
The accident occurred on the freight line and not the South Coast line, so it will have no impact on commuter services.
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