(The following article by Amanda Kerr was posted on the Virginia Gazette website on September 9.)
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — In an unusual twist, city firefighters had a fire come to them instead of the other way around.
A westbound CSX train alerted the fire department around 2:40 p.m. Thursday of smoke coming from an open hopper car.
“The call was that we had a rail car that was carrying coke, a byproduct of oil refining, that was burning and was headed into town,” said Capt. Chuck White of the Williamsburg Fire Department.
At first, fire officials debated whether to have the train stop right away in lower James City. That would have necessitated shifting command and would have taken time.
Instead, the decision was made quickly by battalion chief Wayne Thomas to position a fire truck in the parking lot between the train station and the city shop to catch the train as it drove by in a few minutes.
“The decision was based on best access to the tracks, best access to a water supply and that runoff would not be a factor because it wouldn’t flow into any drainage ditches,” White said.
Within minutes, the train was approaching the Henry Street crossing. Engineers stopped just long enough to uncouple the cars after the burning car. The front of the train stopped past the Transportation Center, leaving the smoking car just a few hundred feet from the fire station.
A waiting fireman was positioned atop the fire truck’s ladder with a hose in hand.
“It wasn’t really a flaming-type fire,” White said. “It was more of a smoldering situation. No flames were visible.”
Fear that runoff from the car’s contents might pose a hazard slowed the process. Once firefighters confirmed the contents were safe, they doused the car with a few hundred gallons of water. The water crackled and sizzled as it hit the target, sending a plume of steam and smoke into the air.
It was unclear what started the fire. “I don’t know whether there was an ignition source, or if this product is subject to spontaneous combustion,” White said. “It’s not like we could dump the contents out and look for a cause.”
Coke is defined as a hard, gray, porous fuel made up of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur and oxygen.
In 2004 CSX transported 518,000 carloads of hazardous materials. The CSX website claims that transporting hazardous materials by train is 10 times safer than using commercial trucks. A rail car carrying coal derailed in the 1970s in the same vicinity, and a rail company crane inadvertently knocked out the wooden bridge of Capitol Landing Road.
A Williamsburg Area Transport bus route was temporarily disrupted because Armistead Avenue was closed to allow the water hose to stretch from a fire hydrant located at the fire station on North Boundary Street.
The fire department did not officially close the train station, although dispatchers were notified so they could reroute any train traffic accordingly.
White said the scene was cleared in about an hour. The train sustained no major damage and was able to recouple with the rest of the cars and continue on its way.