(The following article by Andale Gross and Jim Carney was posted on the Akron Beacon Journal website on May 9.)
AKRON, Ohio — Vandalism is suspected as the cause of the derailment of a CSX freight train carrying coal in Akron near the Barberton line early Monday, police and CSX officials said.
No one was injured, but the damage was extensive.
The train derailed about 1:20 a.m. Monday at 31st Street Southwest and Welsh Avenue.
Lt. Rick Edwards said it appears that vandals set two railroad ties along the track. The heavy wooden ties had been lying around the site because they were to be added to the base of the tracks as replacements for old ties, Edwards said.
When the train struck the railroad ties, it derailed, Edwards said.
CSX spokesman Bob Sullivan in Philadelphia said 10 of the train’s 103 rail cars and both locomotives were derailed.
It was unclear how many of the cars overturned, but both locomotives remained upright, Sullivan said.
Three cars were destroyed, along with a shed containing electrical wiring that controls signals on the tracks, Edwards said.
Damage to the train and shed was estimated at $600,000.
The engineer and the conductor were not injured, Sullivan said.
Tons of coal spilled during the accident. CSX crews spent hours cleaning up the debris, but trains were to resume running by 9 or 10 p.m. Monday, Sullivan said.
The train was traveling from Chicago to Brunswick, Md., Sullivan said. The track that runs through the Akron area normally carries 15 to 20 trains a day.
CSX is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of whoever was responsible, Sullivan said.
“The act of vandalism was extremely dangerous,” he said. “It endangers the community, the emergency responders who have to respond to an incident, the train crew and it can endanger the people who are committing the act itself.”