(The following article by Shelley Terry was posted on the Ashtabula Star Beacon website on December 1.)
ASHTABULA, Ohio — Seven CSX railroad freight cars derailed early Wednesday under the West Avenue overpass, in the vicinity of West 30th Street and Griswold Avenue.
It appeared the train and it’s crew were traveling west when the cars derailed at about 7 a.m.
CSX did not return several phone calls made Wednesday to it’s headquarters in Jacksonville, Fla.
No one was injured in the accident, and the derailment did not cause any traffic problems, said Capt. Gerald Cornelius of the Ashtabula Police Department.
Crews worked all day Wednesday cleaning up the site.
No one seemed to know why the freight cars derailed.
On Nov. 22, nine freight cars on a 17-car CSX train derailed alongside Tillotson Road, about three-quarters of a mile north of Route 20 in Ashtabula Township. No one was injured in that incident.
CSX takes pride in it’s safety record, spending $1 billion annually on track and structural improvements, said Bob Sullivan, railroad spokesman, after last week’s derailment. Sullivan also said about 4,800 employees work full time on track and bridge maintenance.
The CSX train that derailed Nov. 22 was carrying long cars stacked with containers. Wednesday’s freight cars were a mix of box cars and long cars carrying large packages.
CSX Corp. owns companies providing rail and rail-to-truck services, connecting more than 70 ocean, lake and river ports, as well as more than 200 short-line railroads, according to CSX’s Web site.
CSX Transportation Inc. operates the largest railroad in the eastern United States, with a 22,000-mile rail network linking 23 states, the District of Columbia and two Canadian provinces.