(The Mobile Register posted the following article by Lee Davidson on its website on August 22.)
MOBILE, Ala. — The railroad track that was split like an open zipper by a Thursday afternoon freight train derailment should be ready for traffic by noon today, a CSX railway spokesman said Friday.
The cause of Thursday’s derailment along Catfish Bayou in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta in north Mobile County remains under investigation, CSX spokesman Gary Sease said from his Jacksonville, Fla., office.
No injuries were reported in the incident, in which none of the train’s three locomotives derailed, but numerous cars dunked into the bayou.
A team of contractors, government officials and railroad inspectors worked at the Delta site virtually around-the-clock, clearing spilled coal and railcars from the tracks, Sease said.
While the track is expected to be ready today, Sease said it will “take time” to remove damaged boxcars and coal from the remote area. Seventeen boxcars folded “accordion style” during the 4:30 p.m. incident, Sease said.
The emphasis is on returning the track to working order so the 30 trains that run daily on the north-south route can resume their schedules. Seven trains deemed high priority were rerouted to a nearby Norfolk-Southern line, Sease said.
The train was hauling about 9,800 tons of coal into Mobile from Montgomery. The incident occurred about a mile south of the deadliest wreck in Amtrak history — the 1993 crash of the Sunset Limited that killed 47 people.
Since Thursday’s derailment involved coal cars, not a more hazardous cargo, the incident did not pose a serious threat to the environment, Sease said.
“Any derailment is an issue that we have to address. … From that information we’re able to prevent derailments that might involve some other type of cargo,” he said.