Metro Rail restored after freight train derailment
Metro Rail service will be back to normal Thursday, running the full 32 miles between Leander and the MLK station in East Austin, Capital Metro officials said, after crews spent Wednesday dealing with the effects of an early morning freight train derailment.
Six of the 72 cars in the 4,500-foot-long freight, propelled by six locomotives and carrying gravel south and then east toward Manor, came off the track near Pedernales Street about 4:30 a.m. That left a string of cars stranded behind the derailment in the section of Capital Metro tracks used by MetroRail trains.
Capital Metro officials, unable to run MetroRail trains south of the MLK sta- tion, used buses throughout the day to ferry train passengers between the MLK, Plaza Saltillo and downtown sta- tions. Although MetroRail service will be restored Thursday, officials couldn’t say when freight service will be able to resume because of the damage to the Pedernales Street rail
crossing. That section is not part of the track used by MetroRail.
The Pedernales and East Sixth rail crossings remained closed to automobile traffic late Wednesday as crews awaited key equipment to move train cars, said Capital Metro spokeswoman Erica Macioge. But officials expected the East Sixth crossing to open by 10 p.m.
One of the derailed cars was back on the track by early Wednesday afternoon, the agency said in a statement.
No injuries or spills occurred, according to Capital Metro.
The derailment’s cause has not been determined, the transit agency’s president and chief executive officer, Linda Watson, said in a statement.
The derailment occurred just east of a problematic, three-way track junction called the “wye,” an area south of East Seventh Street where trains have to make what amounts to a 90-degree turn and must slow to a crawl.
The chain of cars that partially derailed was traveling less than 5 mph and was operated by a Capital Metro contractor, Watco Companies Inc., Macioge said.
The incident was reminiscent of train derailments that occurred several years ago, though officials couldn’t say whether the cases were related in any way. Wednesday’s derailment occurred south and east of where freight cars left the track in 2010.
In July 2010, Capital Metro saw what the agency calls a “walk-off” — a minor derailment in which a train wheel leaves the track at a slow speed but the train does not overturn. The walk-off occurred at the north end of the wye.
The train in that case
No one was injured and nothing was spilled.
also was going about 5 mph, carrying rock and headed in the same direction as the train involved Wednesday. The 2010 incident forced the cancellation of all morning MetroRail trains and blocked East Seventh Street traffic for several hours. Officials later said they were studying the crash for improvements to help avoid future derailments in the area.
MetroRail trains pass through the wye as well, but when traveling south they turn west toward downtown rather than east to Manor.
The wye also was the scene of a 2007 freight derailment that led to a substantial spill of diesel fuel when a tank ruptured. Restrictions on train speed were subsequently put in place. Contact Claudia Grisales at 912-5933. Twitter: @cgrisales; Contact Ben Wear at 445-3698.