Derailed train cars are moved
(The following article by Charles McChesney was posted on the Syracuse Post-Standard website on November 22.)
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – The emergency at the CSX train derailment near Central Square is over, according to Terry Bennett, emergency services coordinator for Oswego County.
The rail cars with chlorine tanks have been picked up and put back on the tracks. Route 11 was to be reopened overnight, she said.
The Central Square Fire Department has left the scene, as have the rest of the emergency workers, Bennett said.
CSX workers will remain on the scene and will be responsible for the cleanup.
A CSX spokesman said the track would be rebuilt and the area restored and cleaned up.
He didn’t say how long it would take.
The first priority, said CSX’s Robert Sullivan, was getting the cars out of the area. By Monday morning, workers had removed two cars that contained sodium hydroxide, a corrosive chemical used in drain cleaner. One car had leaked, but Sullivan said he did not know how much had been spilled.
Tracked backhoes and other heavy equipment grappled and pushed wreckage Monday from the gully where trains had run. The equipment’s tracks turned the rail bed into chocolate-colored mud, as they cleared hundreds of tons of cars from the track area to nearby land to the west.
After clearing the cars, Sullivan said, “the second step is getting the track rebuilt. That will be done in the next day or so. Then you focus on restoring the site.”
Sullivan declined to offer a timeline but said that, depending on the circumstances, such work can take a couple of weeks or a couple of months.
As the afternoon wore on, workers focused on four tanker cars full of chlorine.
Sullivan said the process required that the tankers be checked and their
safety reassessed before they were moved.
Route 11 had remained closed Monday betw