(The following story by Deborah Buckhalter appeared on the Jackson County Floridan website on October 22.)
GRAND RIDGE, Fla. — CSX started running trains through the Grand Ridge area around 9 p.m. Sunday, roughly 36 hours after a derailment sent five locomotives and 26 rail cars rumbling off the track near Grand Ridge School.
Crews spent most of Sunday getting the track ready to accept traffic.
The derailment occurred around 9 a.m. Saturday, and as of late Monday afternoon the cause had not been determined, according to CSX spokesman Bob Sullivan.
Five of the cars contained hazardous chemicals but none of the material was spilled, according to Sullivan.
One of those, which contained fluorosilicic acid was “in such condition” after the derailment that rail officials felt it would be prudent to remove the contents and place the liquid in a portable tank that will be transported away from the scene, Sullivan said.
The chemical transfer was carried out Sunday. As a precaution, CSX put a couple of families up in a local hotel while that was taking place.
Lisa Snell and her family returned home Monday morning.
She said the rail company had treated her well, and had no complaints about how things were handled in the aftermath.
She was not the only one to praise CSX for its rapid response to the crisis.
Phyllis Daniels, assistant principal at Grand Ridge School, said CSX was at the school by 7:30 a.m. Monday, the first day of classes since the derailment. Company representatives briefed school officials on the incident, she said, and were handling the matter responsibly.
Grand Ridge School officials, she said, have a safety plan in place with protocols that they would follow if the derailment had taken place during school hours or had resulted in any danger to the public health. They had also talked over the incident to some extent early Monday to gain further reassurance that their plan was solidly in place.
But some folks, while acknowledging the positive aspects of CSX’s response, also think it’s time for the company to take more aggressive preemptive actions to avoid such problems.
Grand Ridge town council member Thomas Peaden, for instance, said he thinks the company should take better care of its tracks.
Sullivan said the rail line is supposed to be inspected twice a week and that he believes those inspections are being carried out to the letter.
“There’s no finding at this point that there was any existing damage to the track,” he said. “People can speculate, but what we need to do is find out what the cause of this derailment was, and what, if anything, needs to be done. It is still under investigation, and until we inspect the track, look at the equipment and how the train is being handled, go through the standard process, we’re not going to be able to answer that question.”
The Rev. Steve Benefield, who pastors Inwood Baptist Church, also voiced some concerns. While he thought CSX responded well after the crisis, he worries that the frequency of derailments is increasing. He counts four or five derailments that have occurred in the Grand Ridge, Sneads and Cypress areas in the past 40 years. Three of those, he said, were recent, and he thinks better communication with the community would be a good way to head off problems in the future.
He said he has, in the past, found it difficult to find a number to call if he needs to reach CSX. Although he now has a number because he doggedly tracked it down, he said he believes the company should post a phone number in prominent public places that people can call.
That way, he said, if someone sees something that looks out of place or finds damaged track, they can simply go to their favorite store, find the number posted on the door, and report the problem immediately.
Benefield also suspects that the problem Saturday, and perhaps in earlier derailments, has something to do with heavy rainfall. Close to nine inches of rain fell in the day or two leading up to Saturday’s derailment. The next most recent, he said, also occurred during wet weather. He believes the rain may be making the rail bed spongy and therefore vulnerable to track trouble. He wants CSX to look into that possibility further.
Sullivan, although he wouldn’t speculate as to cause, didn’t discount that as a possible factor in the case. He said all possibilities are being examined.
Benefield also had another suggestion about preemptive actions that the company could take. He thinks the company should take a page from the history of well-known Florida rail magnate Ed Ball.
In 1964, according to Benefield, Ball was in the middle of a bitter labor dispute with his workers and was worried about possible sabotage on the track. He’d had reports that the men may have been planning to implant explosives along the line and “blow up” a train.
So, Benefield said, Ball heavily load a remotely controlled flatcar and ran it about a mile ahead of the train. He’d rather let the flatcar take the explosion and give his train a chance to stop before it came upon the wreckage.
Benefield said he was 14 when that incident was reported in newspapers all across the state and nation, and admired Ball for his innovative approach.
Sullivan didn’t have too much to say about that suggestion, but repeated that CSX will continue to investigate the derailment and work with local authorities.
“We’re not going to do anything in the way of operations that endangers people,” Sullivan said.
He also provided a full list of the chemicals that were on the train. In addition to the fluorosilicic acid in one tanker, phosphoric acid was being hauled by two others. The remaining two had “residue” amounts of ammonium nitrate and methyl ethyl ketone. He said he could not estimate how much “residue” amounts entailed, but that it was what was left in the bottom after the chemicals were transferred from tanker to customer.
He said he could not say exactly what such chemicals are used for, but cited industrial applications.