(The following story by Michael Wagner appeared on the Fayetteville Observer website on September 9.)
ABERDEEN — Railroad investigators were still trying to figure out Wednesday why a freight train derailed in downtown Aberdeen Tuesday morning.
A spokesman for the Jacksonville, Fla.-based railroad, CSX, said the cause is under investigation. But Aberdeen Town Manager Bill Zell said he was told by railroad officials that a switch had been left open, causing the northbound train to slide off the tracks.
No one was injured in the 6:15 a.m. crash, but the derailment left a heap of mangled freight cars piled on both sides of the tracks. Remnants of their cargo – cement and lime – collected on the muddy ground underneath them.
Gary Sease, a CSX spokesman, said investigators are trying to figure out which cars are salvageable and which will be cut up and sold for scrap. Zell said a scrap dealer has already bid on the cars.
“I guess it happens fast,” he said. He was not sure when the cars would be removed. “They were talking a week or two,” he said.
Sease said the trucks, or wheels of the freight cars, will probably be kept and reused.
Once CSX finishes its investigation, it will report its findings to the Federal Railroad Administration, Sease said. The National Transportation Safety Board is also investigating, although a spokesman could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
“We want to be absolutely sure what the cause was before we release anything to the public,” Sease said. “We’re taking our time and doing our methodical analysis of the physical evidence, talking to the crew.”
The main track was reopened at 6 a.m. Wednesday, Sease said. Workers are still trying to rebuild the ruined stretch of side track, which is used for trains to pass slower moving trains.
Workers spent all day Tuesday clearing the cars off the mainline track and rebuilding it from the wood cross ties up to the steel rail and concrete ballast.
Signal repairs
Investigators and CSX personnel were at the scene all night Tuesday, a supervisor said Wednesday.
On Wednesday, railroad workers concentrated on getting the signals at crossings working again. The crossing at South Street was open Wednesday but the Main Street crossing was still closed. Zell said it would probably stay closed for several days.
The 80-car train was headed to Raleigh when 17 cars and five locomotives slid off the tracks. All of the derailed cars ended up on a block-long stretch between South and Main streets.
One of the cars stopped just a few feet from the historic train depot building.
“It is a miracle that our depot didn’t get hit,” Zell said. “When you walk out the back door, the thing was 10 feet away.”
The scene drew dozens of curiosity-seekers Wednesday, most with cameras.
“It’s really something,” said Bob Ham of Seven Lakes. “It’s unbelievable, really.”
Katie Cadell lives on Rush Street about a block from the tracks. She’s lived there for more than 40 years. She said she knows when every train is supposed to pass by.
“I hear ’em all the time,” she said. Tuesday morning, she was waiting to hear the 6:15 train, “but it didn’t come by.”
She said she was shocked to hear about the derailment on the news because she never heard the screeching metal or the sirens from emergency vehicles.
“There’s nothing like walking down here and seeing it,” she said.