(The following article by Jolene Craig and Justin McIntosh was posted on the Parkersburg News website on December 20.)
MARIETTA, Ohio — An inspection five months ago on the Marietta railroad bridge that collapsed early Monday sending coal cars tumbling onto Virginia Street showed no problems with the bridge, CSX officials said.
The bridge collapsed around 1:50 a.m. Monday and caused a 90-car CSX coal train to derail. Eight of the cars tumbled down onto Virginia Street. No one was injured. The coal-filled rail cars were making a delivery to AEP’s Muskingum River Plant near Beverly.
Few answers as to why the bridge might have collapsed were available from the company on Monday.
The Ohio Department of Transportation is not investigating because the tracks and train bridges are under the jurisdiction of CSX, said Stephanie Filson, public relations officer for ODOT’s District 10.
CSX is investigating the wreck, but officials said it was too soon after the accident to determine its cause. The track, operating procedures and train will all have to be inspected before a cause can be determined. The process could take a few weeks, officials said.
Meanwhile, work on cleaning up Virginia Street, which runs underneath the bridge and was closed to traffic Monday, proceeded rapidly, with traffic expected to be reopened to area travelers today, said Kim Skorniak, CSX spokeswoman.
A temporary bridge for rail traffic is expected to be built within a week or two.
The main question facing CSX, and possibly state and federal railroad officials, who may all investigate the wreck, is whether the train jumped off the tracks, causing the bridge to collapse, or whether the train was derailed because the bridge collapsed.
Yearly inspections, the last of which occurred on July 6, have not shown any reason to suspect the bridge was dangerous, Skorniak said.
Steve Kulm, spokesman with the railroad administration, said records show a significant number of derailments because they can be as minor as one rail coming off the track or as severe as the Marietta accident. Before Monday’s wreck, the costliest derailment in the county caused just under $30,000 in damage.
“Derailments can be caused by a variety of things, like a collision between trains and in some cases speeding trains taking a curve too fast,” Kulm said. “I’ve even heard, a number of years ago, there was a standing derailment where the train was not moving, just sitting there, and the tracks gave way under the weight.”
Local inspections are not done on the bridge, mostly because it’s the responsibility of the owner of the rail bridge and tracks. But state law requires the Washington County engineer’s office to visually inspect the rail bridge for potential hazards to passing motorists, like falling pieces of equipment.
County Engineer Bob Badger said the inspections haven’t been done and even if they were it’s doubtful they would have prevented the accident because the surveys were not for structural issues. Badger said he was not aware his office was supposed to be inspecting railroad bridges for potential hazards to traffic until he looked it up after hearing of the derailment.
“In all the years I’ve been here, and I did two years with the county in ’79 and ’80, they weren’t being inspected,” Badger said.
The stretch of Virginia Street where the bridge fell is a county road. Badger said the roadway was damaged, and that would need to be repaired at CSX’s expense before it would be re-opened, despite what the railroad has reported.
Filson said it was fortunate that Ohio 7 was not affected.
“That vicinity of Ohio 7 has about 12,000 cars per day while the Virginia Street exit ramp sees about 1,730 cars per day,” Filson said. “It is much better for ODOT and the travelers that this occurred where it did.”