(The following article by Dan Majors and Gabrielle Banks was posted on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website on October 23.)
PITTSBURGH — Most of the people living near the scene of Friday night’s fiery train derailment in New Brighton were back in their homes last night, returning to their beds while one last tanker car continued to burn on a bridge over the Beaver River.
Emergency officials from Beaver County, the state and the National Transportation Safety Board met last night to discuss whether to let the fire, fueled by the ethanol within the car, burn itself out. The other option, according to Wes Hill, director of emergency services for Beaver County, would be to have firefighters move in to extinguish it.
“They’re still weighing options,” Mr. Hill said. “They’re going to work through the night and that may change. They’re still talking very strongly about fire suppression.”
Two rail cars remained in the Beaver River, below the trestle where the 80-car Norfolk Southern train, transporting 100,000 gallons of ethanol fuel from Chicago to New Jersey, derailed.
Earlier in the day, teams of men in hard hats worked within feet of two burning railcars, draining the explosive ethanol and continuing the removal of more than 70 tanker cars from the site. Crews also used bulldozers and massive cranes to lay new tracks across the bridge.
“We’re still in a caution stage because we have fire burning and product in the [last] car,” Mr. Hill said last night. “But things are progressing well.”
Although the derailment at 10:30 p.m. Friday produced a massive explosion that rocked the New Brighton and Beaver Falls neighborhoods, none of the train’s crew or the more-than-150 evacuated residents was injured.
Fire officials yesterday reduced the blocked-off “hot zone” to a three-block area of Second Avenue, about 100 feet from the derailment, affecting 10 families living in five duplexes.
Residents returning to homes inside the original one-square-mile evacuation zone were urged to park their vehicles outside the area and walk in.
New Brighton Borough Manager Larry Morley said Norfolk Southern Railway had set up a family-assistance center at First United Methodist Church, 11th Street and Sixth Avenue. He encouraged residents who incurred expenses as a result of the fire, derailment and evacuation to visit the center between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m., today through Friday.
“It’s been a heck of a ride for them. Anything we can do for them, we’re going to try to do,” he said.
Also, railway officials asked business owners who suffered financial losses to contact the railroad at 1-800-230-7049, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Charlene Ours, manager at Krestal’s coffee and doughnut shop near the disaster command post, said she lost one day’s worth of regular business but opened to distribute free coffee and snacks to emergency officials. Business yesterday was booming, she said.
State Route 18 in New Brighton opened to northbound and southbound traffic yesterday morning and Second Street in Beaver Falls also opened.
The NTSB has not yet determined the extent of structural damage to the Beaver Falls-New Brighton Bridge, which was littered yesterday with twisted tracks and splintered guardrails. The riverbed resembled a junk yard filled with pairs of sheared-off train wheels on their axles.
NTSB Vice Chairman Robert Sumwalt said that a section of damaged track from the bridge was shipped to Washington, D.C., to determine whether it was damaged before or by the derailment.
He said FBI officials, who are routinely called in for NTSB investigations, did not believe the derailment was prompted by “any sort of sabotage.”
Preliminary indications from the train’s data recorders showed that the train was traveling 36 to 39 mph when it crashed, Mr. Sumwalt said. The speed limit is 45 mph along the rail bridge over the Beaver River.
Mr. Sumwalt said the train’s crew had told investigators the train was running well until it automatically applied emergency brakes because pneumatic brake lines between cars had been severed.
“They looked behind them, they saw the train was on fire,” he said. “The engineer contacted 911, he contacted the dispatcher, and then they evacuated the locomotive cabin and got … about a half a mile away from it.”
Federal investigators worked throughout the day yesterday making diagrams of the wreckage and recording the positions of the cars for later analysis, he said.
Norfolk Southern spokesman Rudy Husband said company officials inspect mainline tracks like the ones on the bridge at least twice a week.
Mr. Husband said the tracks are used by 50 to 70 trains each day and that officials were working on a detour plan.
The derailment already has affected Amtrak’s Capitol Limited, which makes one round trip daily between Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Until the damaged section of track reopens, each one-way trip will take about 2 1/2 hours longer because the train is being detoured onto tracks between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black said.
Still, local officials are focusing on a dangerous situation that they said could have been much worse.
“I think we dodged a bullet here,” said New Brighton Mayor Rick Smith.
“You had the antithesis of ‘A Perfect Storm,’ ” said Beaver County Commissioner Charles Camp.
He explained that because the river level was high and ethanol is not the most dangerous fuel, there was minimal harm to animal and plant life. He also noted that the bridge is on the northernmost edge of town, away from most homes and businesses.
Betsy Mallison, spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said there had been no disruption to public water supplies and minimal environmental impact. Some aqueous white foam used to suppress the ethanol vapors was being cleared from the river, she said.
In terms of nostalgic value, locals said, the greatest loss was “Big Rock,” a giant boulder at the riverside that was a popular diving spot for swimmers. The rock, at the entrance to Big Rock Park, was shattered by the toppling rail cars. Also, they said, the giant American flag someone had painted on it was impossible to discern in the rubble.
The mayor said residents have been fairly resilient during these last few days.
He said, “I’ve heard [the spot] referred to as Pebble Beach.”