(The following article by Cathy Woodruff was posted on the Albany Times-Union website on June 1.)
ALBANY, N.Y. — One track was cleared late Wednesday afternoon and a second was expected to be ready for traffic sometime Wednesday night after a CSX freight train derailed Tuesday in the Montgomery County hamlet of Tribes Hill, halting freight and passenger trains that usually roll along the Mohawk riverfront.
CSX spokesman Bob Sullivan said the freight railroad was able to resume routing some trains through the area by 4:15 p.m., and Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited from New York City to Chicago also ran on Wednesday afternoon after a cancellation on Tuesday, according to an Amtrak ticket agent.
Amtrak, which had been ferrying passengers on some trains between stations east and west of the derailment by bus, was expected to operate on its normal schedule of east-west runs along the Mohawk Valley today.
The cause of the derailment, which caused about 25 cars to jump off the track at about 2 p.m. Tuesday, remains under investigation, Sullivan said.
There were no injuries, but the mishap did prompt the evacuation of about 30 homes in Tribes Hill as a precaution as fierce thunderstorms approached.
Officials feared that an errant lightning strike could ignite vapors inside several tank cars that had held flammable ethanol and were among the cars derailed.
Residents were allowed to return to their homes at about 7 p.m., when the storms had passed and CSX officials and firefighters examined the condition of the derailed tankers. All were intact, except one car containing vegetable oil, which leaked, Sullivan said.