(The following report by Lee Davidson appeared on the Mobile Register website on November 3.)
MOBILE, Ala. — CSX railway officials have said that a “kink” in their railroad track, the result of what was then recent rail line maintenance, caused a 17-car derailment in north Mobile County this fall.
No one was injured Aug. 19 when a 98-car freight train carrying coal split open the tracks near Catfish Bayou in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta.
CSX spokesman Gary Sease said that the company is reviewing its maintenance policies to find out what changes need to be made to prevent such an incident elsewhere.
The Mobile County derailment was the first involving a kink that came on heels of maintenance work, Sease said.
At issue is how the track responds to contractions and expansions caused by cold and heat, he said.
“This is a track-caused derailment. There was no human error. The maintenance people did everything by the books, and the track kink still occurred, so that’s why we’re going back and looking at our maintenance policies,” Sease said.
The track was closed for three days following the derailment while debris was removed and the rail line was repaired, according to reports. The company has not put a dollar value on damage to the train cars or cargo, and Sease was unable to estimate revenue lost as a result of the derailment, or related delays and reroutes for other rail cargo.