‘It was raining rocks’ from trestle
Debris falls from train above city street, injuring two people and damaging cars
Two people were injured and four vehicles were damaged on Tuesday after rocks being used for ballast fell from a CSX freight train as it crossed the trestle high above Abeel Street in the city’s Rondout district, according to the Kingston Police Department.
Detective Lt. Thierry Crozier said a woman suffered an eye injury when a falling rock smashed her car’s windshield, causing glass to spray. Another woman suffered an arm injury in a rear-end crash caused by a driver stopping short to avoid getting hit by falling rocks, Croizer said.
Both women were taken to a hospital for treatment, but neither injury was considered serious, the police official said. The women’s names were not provided.
Crozier said a CSX maintenance
crew was dropping fresh gravel ballast around the railroad tracks immediately before the trestle when either a crew member didn’t realize the doors holding the ballast in the cars were open or there was a malfunction and the train kept spreading the ballast. He said the rocks fell between the ties on the bridge and struck vehicles below.
“It was raining rocks,” said Jarrod Tiedemann, who lives near the trestle and said he’s seen debris fall from above in the past.
“I’ve seen nails and bolts fall off” the trestle, Tiedemann said.
Abeel Street was closed to traffic between Wilbur Avenue and Dewitt Street shortly after the 12:40 p.m. incident, and the closure remained in effect after 5:30 p.m.
A CSX police officer at the scene said it was possible more debris could come down from the trestle, which crosses the Rondout Creek just south of where the rocks fell.
The officer referred questions to the railroad company’s headquarters in Jacksonville, Fla. A CSX corporate spokesman did not return a reporter’s phone message Tuesday afternoon.
David Ramirez, who works for LaTorre Construction, a few doors down from the base of the trestle, said he arrived after police had closed Abeel Street and that he saw more debris fall when another train passed.
“I saw a bunch of rocks come down from the tracks,” Ramirez said.
Tyler Borchert, owner of Stone Styling, just below the trestle, agreed with Tiedemann that rocks and other debris have fallen from the bridge in the past. Borchert said his car has been damaged twice.
“I called them (CSX) and never heard back, he said.
This time, Borchert said, about an inch of stone covered a small dock immediately under the trestle.
Borchert said he also has concerns about the soundness of the railroad bridge, and that he’s expressed them to local and state officials on several occasions.
“Some of the cross members are rotted,” he said pointing to the trestle’s supports.
“If one of those trains with the crude oil tankers fell, it would destroy everything,” Borchert said.