(The following story by Kelly Hannon appeared on the Free Lance-Star website on July 9, 2010.)
FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — Two earlier freight train derailments occurred on the same rail line where three railcars carrying coal overturned in Stafford County on Tuesday, but industry and federal rail officials do not view them as a pattern.
When asked if several derailments within a 10-year span on the same track indicated a pattern, Robert Kulat, a Federal Railroad Administration spokesman, said no. “No, it’s not a pattern. Derailments can happen for any number of reasons,” Kulat said, “and two over a decade is not very much. Now having said that, we inspect the track.”
Improvements to railroad track, additional employee training, and new technology have led to lower rail accident rates this decade companywide, said Gary Sease, a CSX spokesman.
“We’ve reduced derailments in the last five years by over 50 percent,” he said.
The Federal Railroad Administration’s safety database shows CSX had two reportable derailments in the vicinity of Tuesday’s incident, in Stafford’s Ferry Farm area. Three railcars toppled over on a 100-car freight train heading east. Coal spilled out of three cars. The industrial track passes by a coal-fired power plant.
A July 15, 2001 derailment also occurred on the Dahlgren Junction Industrial Track, which runs from CSX’s main freight line in Fredericksburg east to Sealston in King George. That derailment occurred within a mile of Tuesday’s incident.
In 2001, eight railcars on a CSX coal train derailed, causing $20,000 in damages to the track and structures and $26,263 in damage to equipment, according to the federal accident report. The derailment was caused by a broken rail. No injuries were reported. The temperature at the time was 86 degrees.
Less than a half-mile from the 2001 accident, on July 20, 2005, nine railcars on a CSX freight train derailed due to missing or defective cross ties, according to the federal accident report. That derailment caused $118,940 in equipment damage, and $20,00 in track and structural damage. The temperature at the time was 93 degrees.
CSX resurfaced the railroad track in the area of the derailments in 2006, and new ties were added, according to the federal agency.
That was the last significant infrastructure upgrade in that area, Sease said.
CSX has finished repairs to the section of railroad track damaged Tuesday.
Repairs were completed by Wednesday afternoon, and the track was reopened, Sease said.
The company is still investigating the cause of the derailment, he said.
The temperature peaked Tuesday at 101.6 in the Fredericksburg area, but CSX cannot say yet whether heat led to the derailment.
“A lot of people would like us to issue a preliminary cause, but we tend to deal only with a cause that we’re confident of based on the analysis of the evidence before we report that formally to the Federal Railroad Administration,” he said.
The investigation will take two to four weeks, Sease said. CSX investigations typically focus on three broad areas, he said: Track conditions, the condition of the equipment, and how the train was being operated.
Trains are equipped with event recorders, similar to an airplane’s black box.
“That can be used to analyze the conditions immediately prior to the derailment,” Sease said.
Train derailments must cause $9,200 in damage to be reportable to the Federal Railroad Administration. The dollar amount changes each year. Last year, a derailment had to cause $8,900 in damage to be reported, according to the agency.
CSX reports all derailments internally, regardless of damage, Sease said.
The Federal Railroad Administration requires railroads to maintain its track to meet federal safety standards and inspect its track on a required schedule, which can vary from multiple times a week to once a month, depending on the amount of rail traffic and type of traffic traveling over it.
The federal agency employs 90 federal track inspectors to audit railroad inspection records, and inspect the track.
The Dahlgren Junction Industrial Track is Class 1 Track, and must be inspected twice weekly, with three calendar days in between inspections. When temperatures reach 85 degrees or higher, the track is inspected every day, Sease said.
The maximum speed on the Dahlgren Junction Industrial Track is 10 mph, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.
The CSX freight train that derailed Tuesday was traveling 8 mph when the incident occurred, Kulat said.
In the July 2001 derailment, the train was traveling 10 mph, and in the July 2005 derailment, the train was traveling 9 mph.