(The following story by Malcolm Hall appeared on the Canton Repository website on September 13.)
PARIS TWP., Ohio — After spending nearly a year abandoned and forlorn, hidden in a tunnel, a train’s caboose was set free Wednesday from its trap under a hill.
Now that Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway has had the caboose freed, various parties will try to determine who was responsible for the caboose being trapped inside a tunnel.
Brewster-based Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway owns the track here in the Robertsville area of Paris Township, but this particular leg was leased to a Minerva-based group called Ohi-Rail Corp.
“They took a caboose that had a cupola and the tunnel collapsed around it,” said William Callison, president of Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway. “The caboose was too big for the clearance of the tunnel.” So there it sat.
Wheeling & Lake Erie spent several months reviewing its next move because of insurance concerns regarding such matters as paying for damage to the tunnel. Eventually, the Brewster-based railroad brought in a contractor, Micon Products International of Pittsburgh, to remove the caboose.
“The insurance company asked that we call in the contractor,” Callison said. “The insurance company will pay for the removal of the caboose and all the work leading up to it. The contractor stabilized the tunnel in order to remove the caboose. They had to stabilize the roof before they removed (it).”
SHIPPING PROBLEMS
More than just a humorous tale of a caboose stuck in a tunnel, the incident caused commerce problems for a few Carrollton manufacturers and businesses that use the railroad track to ship in raw materials. For instance, there is Noramco of 750 Garfield Ave. in Carrollton, which produces plastic garbage bags.
“What happened (was), we ran out of resin,” said James Popela, owner of the company. “We kept ordering and ordering. We ended up buying three times more resin than we can use just to stay open.”
Without railroad service, some businesses could find themselves resorting to tractor-trailers to ship out products and bring in raw materials.
But, “the customers continued to receive service from Ohi-Rail by way of a detour agreement with Norfolk Southern,” Callison said.
The caboose-jam incident is “the first time I ever heard of anything like this,” said Lou Jannazo, chief of project development for Ohio Rail Development Commission. “Railroads haven’t used cabooses for years. You talk to Ohi-Rail, there are different reasons as to what happened at that tunnel. They thought the tunnel might have had a partial collapse.”
The Ohio Rail Development Commission is appropriating $150,000 toward repair of the tunnel.
“The reason we are doing it, that tunnel is critical to serving Carrollton,” Jannazo said. “The Wheeling & Lake Erie cannot get to Carrollton without that tunnel.”
NOT THEIR FAULT
However, an official with Ohi-Rail, which was leasing the track, would not accept blame for the caboose being stuck in the tunnel.
“We did not send the caboose, the shipper sends it,” said Powell Felix, general manager of Ohi-Rail Corp. “They have some responsibility, too. We rely on the shippers to have accurate information. There are various reasons as to what happened. Just think of this logically. If the caboose was too big for the tunnel, wouldn’t it get stuck at the beginning of the tunnel?”
Ohi-Rail owned the train hauling the caboose. But Felix said his company did not own the caboose. He declined to name who owned the caboose.
“That is still subject to resolution,” Felix said.
Because of the caboose jam-up, there was damage to support beams within the tunnel, which is owned by Wheeling & Lake Erie.
“Probably within a week to 10 days we will resume service,” Callison said. “Wheeling & Lake Erie will resume service to the customers in Carrollton. Ohi-Rail no longer wants to perform under the lease. They wish to terminate the lease.”
While the caboose was stuck, all that township officials could do was watch and wait for railroads to solve the problem.
“It has happened at least once that I know of before,” township Trustee Walt Seaburn said. “It is a tunnel through a hill. When a train goes through, it loosens it up and it collapses on top of the cars.”