Plans change for removing derailed cars on South Side
Wreck-cleanup crews Monday registered some success in removing derailed railroad freight cars from a steep hillside above the Station Square T station.
About 8:15 p.m., following a day of fits and starts, a single car was pulled down, the doors of one of its containers popping open and dumping the entire cargo on the T tracks below.
The salvage operation had resumed after officials changed their plans earlier Monday. Cranes brought to lift the cars back onto the track could not get purchase, so crews decided to drag the cars down the hillside instead.
Bulldozers cleared the slope of trees and brush to make way for the cars and shipping containers.
The slow process started Sunday, after seven cars of a Norfolk Southern Railway
freight train derailed that afternoon, creating a challenge for workers assessing the site and commuters starting their workweeks.
Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich said authorities from the Federal Railroad Administration were on the scene, trying to determine what caused the derailment. He said officials still hoped to have the accident cleared by mid-week, though he conceded that may be pushed back.
Mayor Bill Peduto said the task of clearing the site of rail cars and cargo had been made more difficult by “a constantly changing” set of circumstances unique to each piece of wreckage.
Despite that, Mr. Peduto said he was thankful that the city wasn’t dealing with a more serious situation.
“We’re blessed,” he said. “We dodged a bullet on this one. This could’ve been a catastrophe. Instead, we don’t have any injuries. And we just want to make sure that over the next 48 hours, we continue to have no injuries.”
Had the cars derailed just two minutes earlier, they would have tumbled onto a light-rail passenger train below, the Port Authority confirmed Monday.
Those same freight rails carry cargoes of flammable crude oil every day, said Mr. Peduto, who urged consideration of tougher safety standards for especially hazardous rail shipments. The wrecked cars were carrying retail store commodities and household items, including Listerine mouthwash that cast a minty scent over the South Side.
The wreckage fell onto the Port Authority T line near the Station Square stop, forcing the agency to reroute passenger service onto a backup line through Allentown. But the Allentown line itself was shut down for about seven hours Monday — starting DUQUESNE HEIGHTS about 7 a.m. — after a backhoe at the derailment site snaggedan overhead line.
Port Authority CEO Katharine Eagan Kelleman called that suspension a precautionary step, and shuttle buses moved light-rail passengers between the South Hills Junction T station and Downtown until 2 p.m. The agency suspended fare collections on the T system “to ease the friction a little bit,” Ms. Kellemansaid.
Traffic and delays mounted for the morning rush, due in part to closures on Carson Street and the Smithfield Street Bridge. At South Hills Junction, a frustrated Marlie Charnesky, 23, waited to catch a shuttle. She was an hour into her typically45-minute commute.
“If I can’t make it into work, then I can’t make it into work,” Ms. Charnesky said, adding that she needed to get from Castle Shannon to the North Side. “It’s been pretty hectic.”
Ms. Kelleman said the agency would learn from the derailment, review emergency response plans and “see what we can do differently.” Port Authority is “thinking days, not weeks,” to restore normal T service, including at Station Square, Ms. Kelleman said. The authority was waiting for crews to remove the derailed intermodal cars before assessing damageto the T rails.
That extraction process remaineda moving target Monday, with work expected to continue at least until Tuesday or Wednesday. Mr. Peduto said Carson Street and the Smithfield Street Bridge wouldn’t reopen until Wednesdayat the earliest.
He dubbed the cleanup “constantly changing” after he said it took more than four hours to remove a single rail car. Workers pulled another in about 45 minutes, Mr. Peduto said. By late Monday, BLVD. contractors and Norfolk BIGELOW Southern crews had cleared all but three or four rail cars and about a dozen shipping containers.
“Because recovery crews are working below where the cars are derailed, there are potential hazards as the cars and containers are lifted into the air,” Norfolk Southern spokesman Jonathan Glass said in a statement. “Because manyof the containers are lying at an angle, the straps have to be adjusted carefully to avoid sudden shifts when lifted that could cause the product inside to shift and for the container to spin, slide or swingout.”
The derailed cars featured one shipping container atop another, known as a doublestack.
They have a higher center of gravity than traditional single cars, raising concerns about instability, according a 2011 study by the University ofUtah.
Still, the Federal Railroad Administration does not track the type of freight car involved in railroad accidents, so it can’t say how often double-stack cars derail compared to single cars, spokeswoman Desiree French said. Allegheny County has had 52 train derailments since 2009, accordingto the FRA.
Mr. Glass said safe operating practices for double-stack trains “are the same as they are for any other train.” Taller stacks are more efficient and more environmentally friendly “because they shift freight from highway to rail,” he said.
Pittsburgh City Council President Bruce Kraus said the wreck would probably spur discussions before the elected body. He said it’s too soon to know their focus — or whether the derailment may hold political implications as Norfolk Southern tries to route double-stack cars throughthe North Side.
The rail company has encountered neighborhood opposition over earlier plans to raise the height of two bridges and allow taller trains on a line in that area. State transportation officials are reviewing the proposal and weighing other options. Apart from right-of-way issues, only state and federal agencies regulate railroads, Mr.Peduto said.
Sunday’s crash “raises questions of the necessity of double-stacking through the North Side,” said the mayor, who has long voiced concernsabout rail safety.
“The administration’s posture has been consistent, which is that Norfolk Southern needs to go through an indepth, neighborhood-byneighborhood process” to review environmental impacts and public safety, Peduto chief of staff Dan Gilman said. “That remains our position.”