(The following story by Eric Francis appeared on the Rutland Herald website on August 12.)
BRAINTREE, Vt. — Four miles of railroad tracks torn up by a relatively minor freight train derailment on Saturday night are now causing a major headache for both freight and passenger service through the center of the state.
Beginning on Sunday, the damage to the New England Central Railroad mainline has forced passengers booked on both north and southbound Amtrak Vermonter trains to switch to buses for all stops above Springfield, Mass., and NECR freight trains have been detouring onto Vermont Railways tracks along the western edge of the state.
“We are going to be busing all week,” explained Amtrak Conductor Chris Carme, standing in front of a pair of buses taking on train passengers Monday morning. “They’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Saturday night’s mishap occurred about 10 p.m. when at least two fully loaded railcars on a southbound NECR freight slipped partly off the rails and their giant steel wheels were dragged south across thousands of wooden ties, most of which were cut in two, before the cars finally tipped over and brought the train to an abrupt halt.
Paralleling Route 12A, the damaged stretch of track begins in Roxbury and continues down through the tiny village of East Granville and into Braintree, where the overturned cars came to rest a short distance north of the school.
Braintree resident Chad Russo said he was in a nearby house Saturday evening and actually heard what must have been the derailment, but he said it didn’t strike him as serious until he got up the next morning and found “a lot of mess” at the end of his driveway.
“It was just a small bang,” Russo recalled. “It wasn’t as loud as I thought (a derailment) would be.”
By Monday afternoon most of the wreckage had already been cleared away with the exception of one badly damaged 250-ton hopper car that was overturned with one end peeled open like a giant tin can. The hopper car’s load of powdered limestone, which rail workers said is used in chicken feed to make eggshells hard and to fertilize fields, was spilled partly out onto the ground.
Catherine White, a chemist from Newton, Mass., rode up on the northbound Vermonter on Sunday evening only to learn as the train approached central Massachusetts that everyone would have to get off in Springfield and change to buses. White said for the most part passengers took the announcement calmly and, despite long and slow-moving lines, eventually found their way onto the buses.
“We ended up getting into Vermont about an hour early,” White explained.
“But there was no snack car, which was kind of a bummer.”