(The following article by Jim Nesbitt was posted on the Augusta Chronicle website on January 10.)
GRANITEVILLE, S.C. — A summit on train speeds, crossings and other rail safety issues in this cramped mill town, scene of a Norfolk Southern train wreck and chlorine spill that has killed at least nine, has been scheduled for Jan. 20, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday.
Mr. Graham, who visited the Aiken command center for law enforcement and rescue workers and the First Presbyterian Church where evacuees have been lining up for railroad reimbursement checks, said the summit would include federal rail officials, Norfolk Southern representatives, Avondale Mills officials and state and local politicians.
“The bottom line is, we’ve got to learn from this,” said Mr. Graham, who formerly represented the Aiken area as a U.S. congressman. “We need to expand the scope of this meeting. People have had their lives turned upside down.”
The summit is the result of letters sent by state Sen. Tommy Moore, D-Clearwater, requesting a review of train speeds, schedules, crossing upgrades and other issues that arose in the wake of a Nov. 22 wreck on the same rail line, a train-car collision where five Avondale Mills employees were killed. Six of the nine who died of chlorine inhalation from Thursday wreck were also mill employees.
Mr. Moore said both he and state Rep. Roland Smith, R-Langley, along with Avondale Mills executives, have pressed federal officials and the railroad for this summit.
In light of the widespread devestation of Thursday’s wreck, which appears to be the result of a switching error that diverted the 42-car freight train onto a spur line where it slammed into a parked locomotive at 2:40 a.m., Mr. Moore said discussion shouldn’t be limited to upgrading crossing signals and lowering train speeds.
He said other safety issues, such as moving the Leavelle-McCampbell Middle School, located less than a quarter mile north of the current wreck site and just yards away from the Nov. 22 accident, should be on the table.
“Let’s face it — even after doing all that, there’s going to be much apprehension from now on about the trains going through Graniteville,” said Mr. Moore.
Aiken County state and local officials have long expressed concerns about the frequency of freight traffic, the lack of crossing gates and the speed of trains through Graniteville and the rest of the Midland Valley. The track through Graniteville has a maximum speed of 60 mph, but the railroad maintains a lower 49 mph limit.
On Sunday, salvage workers continued the delicate and dangerous process of transferring an estimated 220 tons of deadly chlorine from three damaged tank cars, including one that continues to leak. A steel patch was supposed to be placed on that leak, but workers said the rupture was too uneven for that and have opted to temporarily plug the hole with a temporary, non-metal patch and begin siphoning between 30 to 40 tons of chlorine from the leaking tank, said National Transportation Safety Board Member Debbie Hersman.
The NTSB investigation continues to focus on the actions of a local Norfolk Southern crew working with empty cars on the siding where the freight train was diverted, a spur line that routes cars to the complex of Avondale Mills plants surrounding the wreck site. That track is rated for a 10 mph maximum speed, she said.
The crew finished its work around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and no other train passed through on the main line until the Norfolk Southern train approached from Augusta early Thursday morning, she said. There are no signals along that stretch of track, she said, but there is a refective marker on the switch that indicates whether it is in correct position that investigators believe the train’s engineer saw seconds before the crash. “This is dark territory,” she said. “There’s no signals they’re looking for. This crew was slowing down.”