(The following article by Richard Cowen and Tom Davis was posted on the Bergen Record website on June 1.)
PATERSON, N.J. — A Paterson train derailment that destroyed two businesses late Tuesday — and could take two days to clear — has once again raised questions about the safety of hauling solid waste by rail.
Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, wrote a letter to Federal Railroad Administration chief Joseph H. Boardman on Wednesday calling for a full review of safety precautions.
Pascrell, appearing at the scene with Paterson Mayor Joey Torres, said the accident — which caused no injuries — could have been much worse.
The 70-car train — which left North Bergen loaded with construction debris and was en route to Binghamton, N.Y. — was about to pass through the Paterson solid waste transfer station when eight cars jumped off the track. The New York Susquehanna & Western Railway line runs through Hudson, Bergen, Passaic and Morris counties before turning north into Sussex County.
At least three of the cars buckled and dumped tons of debris onto an auto repair shop and a car wash, which are only a few feet from the tracks. A broken rail is thought to have played a role in the crash, but no cause has been determined. The FRA is investigating.
In his letter, Pascrell pointed out that rail traffic in northern New Jersey is expected to increase in the coming years — to the detriment of people who live and work near railroad tracks.
“The safety of those families living around rail lines is imperative and should be of primary concern,” he wrote.
FRA officials, however, said railroad safety is improving — despite recent incidents that generated anxiety about the vulnerability of communities through which trains pass.
In March, a 20-foot-high blaze destroyed a NYS&W car parked on a siding in Ridgefield Park. Two landscape workers died in April when they attempted to beat an oncoming locomotive at an Oakland grade crossing on the NYS&W line.
The FRA said it hopes to triple its railroad inspection coverage by the end of the year. The agency also provides $220 million each year to help communities and railroad systems improve or replace grade crossings.
The railroads themselves are working to better maintain their inventory, and they’re building cars that are better equipped to handle heavy and hazardous materials, said Steve Kulm, an FRA spokesman.
“There are a lot of [safety initiatives] going on out there that already exist that people should know about it,” Kulm said.
NYS&W, however, is hauling materials that have generated additional anxiety about the unregulated solid waste that’s transported by train.
Seven cars of the derailed train contained contaminated soil that was encased in heavy-duty wrapping, said Nathan Fenno, excecutive vice president and general counsel of NYS&W. None of those cars tipped over.
Worried local officials and residents, however, point to last July, when a North Bergen waste-transfer station operated by NYS&W was fined $2.5 million by the state Department of Environmental Protection for failing to meet basic building codes and environmental safeguards.
The railroad sued, contending DEP regulations are preempted by federal law. The case is still in litigation with both sides trying to reach an agreement.
That month, a federal judge barred Paterson officials from interfering with the construction of a waste-transfer station along the railroad in the Riverside neighborhood.
Pam Brown, 52, of Paterson, said her back yard is within a few feet of the rail yard, where large trains stacked with solid waste are loaded every day for their run to Binghamton, and then on to a landfill in Ohio.
“These trains run all hours of the night, seven days a week,” Brown said. “I’m not surprised because this was an accident waiting to happen.”
Brown and her Riverside neighbors waged an unsuccessful battle to stop the transfer station from opening last year. “We spoke to the railroad, but they didn’t want to listen,” she said. “This should never have come to Paterson.”
Kulm said development near railroad tracks is a “local zoning issue” over which railroads have no control.
At the FRA’s request, some railroads provide towns with a list of materials that trains regularly haul through their communities. But Fenno said it’s impossible to do that for every community.
Residents, meanwhile, said Tuesday’s accident was a little too close for comfort.
Residents described a screeching wail of brakes piercing the air around 9:20 p.m. Tuesday. The eight cars that derailed scrunched together like an accordion and spilled loads of debris onto the small businesses at 12th Avenue and East 16th Street. The crash pierced a gas line and punched a hole in an underground water main. There was no explosion.
“It was like 9/11,” recalled Jerry Boahene, 40, who was enjoying the warm late spring evening on his front porch when the train derailed. “First I hear this loud ‘boom!’ and then all I can see is the dust. There was a huge cloud of dust that went up. It reminded me of the World Trade Center when it collapsed.”
Police and firefighters arrived and quickly evacuated the neighborhood. An emergency shelter was set up at the Riverside Veterans Home nearby. Boahene fled to a corner on Madison Avenue a block away. The gas main was turned off, and police allowed people to return to their homes around 1 a.m.
“There’s always a danger that when a gas main breaks that a pocket of gas could accumulate,” said Paterson Police Chief James Wittig.
“Someone could light a cigarette and blow up the whole apartment.”
The accident occurred along a grimy stretch of NYS&W railroad near the crossing of Godwin Avenue, on a section of track that is littered with big chunks of asphalt and debris.
That stretch of the rail line is notorious for being a place where homeless people and drug users congregate.
“That’s where all the crackheads go,” said a resident who was standing in front of the barber shop at East 18th Street. “When the train hit, the first word was that someone had been hit. People hang out on those tracks all the time.”