An unmanned locomotive jumped the train tracks in an East Syracuse rail yard on Thursday morning and wound up spilling fuel in Butternut Creek. Investigators say the unmanned freight locomotive was attached to another engine that was being moved in the rail yard around 4:30 am. The locomotive somehow broke away from the other engine and ran of the end of the track near Girden Road in East Syracuse. One end of the CSX locomotive landed on the bank of a tributary of Butternut Creek. A tank containing the locomotive’s diesel fuel was damaged in the accident and about 1500 gallons of fuel spilled into the creek. The State Department of Environmental Conservation is working with private contractors hired by the railroad to cleanup the site. A spokesperson for the railroad says they are still trying to figure out what went wrong. No one was injured in the accident.
Also, CSX again has some problems in Pennsylvania, through Meyersdale, Theirs restricted speed signs up and corrosponding slow moving trains up the grade "normal" and even slower trains comming off the grade, "very abnormal"... I've heard that its cause is from a cracked rail on the west bound track, in the middle of the Meyersdale Main Street crossing, which is just down the street from my house! I haven't went to take a look and all yet or talked to any of the CSX personel I know to find out exactly whats going on but the crossing is rough concidering it was just resurfaced this fall and they have already cut paving out in different spots due to poorly installed rubber rail protectors... As a result from this past fall's Main Street crossing replacement and repaving, they replaced the track through the crossings, both east and west bound tracks, with the real "snap track" section pre-fab, I would asume that the welds where these sections were installed was done and one of which didn't hold out to the strain, and formed a stress crack in the rail right at the weld. They haven't begun to remove any of the paving and the rubber rail protectors yet to reweld or cut out and replace this section of rail as of yet... But they did however place a section of rail off to the western side of the crossing. So I imagine they are waiting on equiptment and tools to preform the task... [ 12 April 2002, 07:24: Message edited by: 7600EM_1 ]
