(The following article by Steve Collins was posted on the Bristol Press website on December 8.)
BRISTOL, Conn. — To prevent more derailments on a city-owned rail spur, officials are eyeing a $120,000 upgrade of the tracks on two major curves as well as a $30,000-a-year program to replace rotting ties.
The idea, they said, is to prevent more derailments like the one that sent a couple of Guilford Rail cars off the tracks Nov. 17.
“We’ve got to have this safety for the community,” Councilor Tom Lavigne said Tuesday. “It’s our responsibility.”
Because the rail line, which runs from Pequabuck to the Bristol Business Center, serves only two factories, Councilor Ellen Zoppo said the city should investigate charging the users at least a portion of the rail maintenance cost.
The city has spent more than $600,000 on the line since 1988. It is used to haul materials to and from the Firestone Building Products factory and R&R Corrugated Box Co., which moved into the old Carnation building.
Public Works Director Walter Veselka said imposing a fee “might make it easier for them to move out of the city.”
“So be it,” responded Zoppo, who has battled with Firestone on a variety of issues the past few years.
Lavigne and Deputy Mayor Art Ward said the user fees are worth considering. Lavigne said, though, that he would not want to discourage rail use because the factories could use trucks instead, which pose a greater hazard.
Zoppo said it is “not unreasonable” to ask the two factories to pay.
Veselka said track repairs were made quickly after last month’s accident, which the railroad considered so routine it didn’t even notify the city for hours.
George Wallace, assistant public works director, said derailments like the one in Bristol are “very common,” with about 100 a day occurring across the country.
“It’s like getting a flat tire on a highway,” he said, not something the railroads fret about.
Lavigne said he would like to see a report of what happened to cause the train to derail. Without solid information, he said, it’s hard to know whether the city is going to be safe in the future.
Veselka said replacing the wooden ties between the tracks is probably the best way to maintain the line’s safety.
There are about 9,000 ties on the city spur, built in the 1960s to serve General Motors, and they last an average of two decades. It would take about $30,000 annually to make sure they’re replaced on a regular schedule.
“That would give us the biggest payback,” Veselka said.
Officials are also considering whether to install a heavier-gauge track on two sharp curves near the beginning of the city spur line.
The city flirted with the idea of imposing user fees on Firestone and other potential users when it upgraded the track in 1998, after it had been pretty much mothballed.
Board of Finance members said then that maintaining the track is costly for taxpayers and user fees could lessen the burden.
But the idea never went anywhere.
The railroad spur starts just north of the railroad bridge in Pequabuck, where it circles back east and then runs north on the west side of Clark Avenue to the former GM plant, now called the Bristol Business Center. Firestone is among its tenants.
The spur connects to the main line, owned by Guilford Rail, that runs from Waterbury to Hartford.