BLOOMINGTON - A west side thoroughfare was closed around a railroad overpass after wood fell from the bridge Thursday night, police said.

Traffic barricades blocked Market Street into late Friday afternoon around the railroad bridge, which is between Morris and Western avenues. The street was previously closed when wood struck two cars May 31.

No cars or people were struck by the falling debris Thursday, said Bloomington Police spokesman Duane Moss. In the previously incident, nobody was directly struck but a woman complained of back pain after stopping her car quickly, police previously said.

Moss said someone reported seeing falling railroad ties or pieces of ties about 9:25 p.m. Thursday. Union Pacific, which owns the tracks, sent an inspector from Iowa and the city put up barricades, he said.

The street will remain closed until Union Pacific officials say it is safe, Moss said.

"I think they'd have some questions to answer about the bridge because it's their bridge," Moss said.

Union Pacific spokeswoman Zoe Richmond said the wood fell from an older walkway that was no longer needed by locomotive workers. Union Pacific workers tried to repair it enough to hold it in place after wood fell late last month, she said, but they removed the structure following Thursday's problem.

"Those four-by-fours were falling from a walkway that is no longer in use," Richmond said. "So the Bloomington Police Department were helping us barricade traffic while our crews removed the walkway so we won't have this situation in the future."

Richmond apologized for the inconvenience to drivers. She said that the walkway began falling apart because of basic wear and tear.

Richmond noted the company has 33,000 miles of track to maintain, "So it sometimes takes us a while until we're doing maintenance on one location or the next."

"But this one definitely got bumped up onto our priority list," she said.