Trains back on replaced track

Associated Press

CRESCENT CITY, Fla. – The track where an Amtrak Auto Train derailed in a deadly mess of mangled cars and rails was cleared Sunday, allowing the first trains to pass through this northern Florida town since the accident.

The original tracks were torn out by Thursday’s derailment, which killed four people and injured more than 150. The first coal train that moved through Sunday morning was on temporary rails, said Gary Sease, spokesman for CSX, the freight railroad that owns the track.

The 39-foot-long sections of temporary track can hold slow-moving trains at 10 mph. The company plans to make improvements this week to allow the temporary tracks to withstand faster trains. He said an average of 28 trains a day are normally scheduled there.

As the coal train passed, workers continued clearing downed trees and debris from the area with bulldozers and cranes.

The Auto Train had been headed for Washington with 418 passengers and 34 crew members, as well as 200 automobiles stacked in 23 cars, when it derailed Thursday.

Its two engines and first two cars stayed on the tracks, but more than half its 40 cars went off, throwing passengers to the cars’ floors and against walls.

Sylvia Sheldon said she and her husband, David, were sitting on a couch in the lounge car when the train derailed, and the couch fell on her.

“I had a guardian angel watching over us,” she said. “I’m black and blue, but I’m walking.”

An Amtrak employee bent over so the couple, in their 70s, could climb on his back to get out through a window, she said. The Boca Raton couple had been returning to Toronto, where they live part time. They said they didn’t know if they’ll take the train when they return to Florida.

The lead engineer told the National Transportation Safety Board that he saw a disjointed track about an hour into a trip from Sanford to Lorton, Va., and slammed on the engine’s brake. Seconds later, a backup engineer in the locomotive cab and a conductor two cars back felt the train hit disjointed track and switched on emergency brakes as well, NTSB board member George Black said.

The NTSB hasn’t said if its investigators have been able to verify if the track was misaligned. The lead engineer said the tracks were misaligned by about 10 inches, NTSB investigator Russ Quimby said.

The area where the crash occurred had chronic problems with water drainage that may have contributed to the accident, Black said. A culvert runs under the tracks and water often soaks the sandy soil.

Passing trains can compress the wet soil, depressing the track downward. Black said the track appeared to be moving under the weight of trains, loosening the bond between cross ties, steel tie plates and spikes.

Quimby said later Saturday that the area where the culvert could have caused soft spots was hundreds of feet in front of where the accident occurred.

CSX spokeswoman Jane Covington said she could not comment on the engineer’s account of the track being misaligned or on whether CSX maintenance crews had reported problems on the stretch of track, citing the NTSB’s ongoing investigation.

Amtrak officials hoped to have the Auto Train running again by today or Tuesday, Amtrak spokeswoman Kathleen Cantillon said. She said the NTSB was holding eight cars for further inspection.

It was Amtrak’s deadliest accident since March 15, 1999, when a train collided with a truck and derailed near Bourbonnais, Ill., killing 13 people and injuring more than 100.

The last Auto Train accident was in 1998, when a train hit an empty car at a crossing in the Virginia town of Jarratt. There were no injuries.

Twenty-five people involved in Thursday’s derailment remained hospitalized Sunday, including one in critical condition, Cantillon said. She said more than 75 percent of the passengers had left for home.