WIND GUSTS BLOW TRAIN OFF TRACKS

Two railroad cars fell down and dragged locomotive with them

The wind from Friday’s nor’easter storm was so severe that it blew a train off the tracks just south of Lincoln University.

East Penn Railroad President and CEO Al Sauer said the gust took down two cars, and they in turn dragged a locomotive with them. The rest of the cars remained upright.

The incident took place just past Wilson Mill Road in the afternoon beside a wide open field. There were two people on the train, the engineer and the conductor; they were not injured.

“We’ve never had anything like this happen,” Sauer said.

He added that the train was loaded with cargo and was traveling westward.

A traffic control officer at the scene on Saturday said the train was carrying piping material headed for construction of a natural gas line. And, indeed, several cars loaded with what appeared to be the piping material were visible from the roadway nearby.

The East Penn trains, based in Kennett Square, are often spoken of also as the conveyers of cooking oil for Herr Foods in Nottingham.

On Saturday, the cleanup was underway. It appeared to present a difficult challenge.

Sauer said the first thing they did was send a locomotive from Kennett Square south to the scene of the accident to retrieve the cars that were still on the track at the north end of the train ahead of the ones that had flipped. The ones at the south end (nearer Oxford) could not be accessed.

The next task was to remove the upended cars. On the morning after, those cars sat with their bellies exposed like beached whales, facing the morning sun.

Sauer said there are specialized contractors that are equipped to move large loads like railroad cars. They were already contacted on Saturday.

Another challenge was getting to the train at all with heavy equipment. The farm

field adjacent to the wreck abuts the road, but is quite soggy with a muddy ditch.

The workers had to create a temporary bridge out of what appeared to be railroad ties laid horizontally so the trucks and tractors could travel onward without getting stuck in the mud.

Traffic was not rerouted along Wilson Mill Road at the scene, but there were some long waits for drivers as the heavy equipment put the mud-crossing ties in place.

Sauer was not sure when the tracks would be open to Oxford area again. He said it would probably be a few days.

Although folks were speculating about how the accident happened, Sauer said it was clearly a gust of wind, and he had heard that several other incidents (one at the nearby Susquehanna River) had suffered the same fate due to the wind.

“Our track is just fine,” he said.

Reports on the severity of the storm placed the gusts at 60 and 70 miles per hour.

CHRIS BARBER — DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA Observers check out an overturned railroad car of an East Penn train from the adjacent field in Lower Oxford. The train was blown over by the wind on Friday afternoon.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE UNION FIRE COMPANY An East Penn train lies belly up on the tracks near Wilson Mill Road in Lower Oxford. The train was blown over by the wind on Friday afternoon.

CHRIS BARBER — DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA Heavy equipment operators construct a stepping-stone bridge of sorts across the muddy ditch to access the train.