(The following article by Lyndsey Layton was posted on the Washington Post website on December 19.)
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A CSX freight train derailed in Alexandria yesterday morning, twisting about 1,000 feet of track and severely interrupting service for about 8,000 commuters on Virginia Railway Express.
The derailment triggered an hour-long shutdown of the southernmost chunk of Metro’s Blue Line, disrupting the morning commute for about 13,000 Metro riders. And it forced Amtrak to cancel most trains south of Washington, except for the auto train that departs from Lorton for Florida.
Railroad crews worked through the day and into last night to remove the damaged rail cars and repair the track. CSX spokesman Robert Sullivan said that the cause was under investigation but that a broken wheel was found on one of the derailed cars. No one was injured.
The train, traveling from Richmond to Baltimore, derailed shortly after 6 a.m. just south of the King Street Amtrak station near Business Center Drive and Quaker Lane, Sullivan said. Of the train’s 96 cars, 13 came off the track. Six of those were empty hazardous-material containers, triggering concern from the Alexandria Fire Department.
Fire officials asked Metro to halt trains in the vicinity while they determined whether hazardous materials had leaked. Metro cut off service to its Franconia-Springfield and Van Dorn Street stations at 6:20 a.m. and shifted Blue Line trains to the Yellow Line. Shuttle buses carried about 760 passengers from the Van Dorn and Franconia-Springfield stations to trains at the Eisenhower Avenue station, Metro officials said. Normal service was restored by 7:30 a.m., they said.
About a cup of the hazardous compound sodium hydroxide leaked from a derailed car — a negligible amount, Sullivan said. Thirty tons of sodium borate, used in the manufacture of glass, and 30 tons of monoammonium phosphate, a fertilizer, also spilled, but neither material is considered hazardous, he said. The train also was carrying steel, paper, cottonseed and bricks.
At the time of the derailment, four northbound VRE trains were approaching the derailment. Rather than drop VRE passengers at the closed Franconia-Springfield and Van Dorn Metro stations, railroad crew members reversed direction. “Yes, we could have rounded up some buses, but it would have taken an hour,” VRE spokeswoman Wendy Lemieux said. “Rather than leave people there in the cold, we turned around and brought people back to the stations and their cars.”
Federal Railroad Administrator Alan Rutter, who usually rides VRE’s Manassas Line, got a call from his staff as he was headed to the VRE station. He said he drove to the Vienna Metro station instead and took the subway to work.
Other VRE passengers ended up driving to the Lorton station and joining slug lines to the District, Lemieux said. Still others boarded OmniRide buses at the Manassas and Woodbridge stations. But southbound Amtrak passengers were stuck.
Chuck Boyer, 54, was sitting with his bags on a bench at the King Street Amtrak station yesterday morning, waiting for his wife to make the 11/2-hour drive from Richmond to pick him up. He’d flown into Reagan National Airport after a business trip to Pittsburgh to find that his train was canceled. “Life happens, it doesn’t do any good to get upset about it,” he said.
For last evening’s commute, VRE improvised and ran a single train on each line but boarded passengers south of the derailment. The Fredericksburg train departed from the Franconia-Springfield VRE station and the Manassas train left from a makeshift station created about 100 feet from the Van Dorn Street Metro station. To reach either of those stations, VRE passengers could ride Metro free of charge.
Kent Petri, 49, a Manassas rider, hunted for the VRE train at the Van Dorn station about 5 p.m. “There’s been scant information,” said Petri, who said the derailment added an hour and 45 minutes to his commute. “It’s been just wonderful,” he said dryly.
Today, VRE will follow a holiday schedule. The Manassas train will terminate near the Van Dorn Street Metro station, and the Fredericksburg Line will end at the Franconia-Springfield station.
All Amtrak regional trains serving Newport News, Richmond and Washington have been canceled today. The southbound Crescent will originate in Manassas instead of Union Station; Amtrak will bus passengers from the District to Manassas, Amtrak officials said.