Cleaning up the PCBs in New York's Penn Station

This article, which is a few days old, says that they are cleaning the muck on tracks 1 and 10 which has been found to contain PCBs. They are going to check the rest of the tracks in the station too.
It took the contractor, Clean Harbors, six nights to clean one track, at $10,000.00 per night.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/toxic-conta ... 1461863531" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I worked in JO tower at the east end of the station in 1957 and '58. JO is directly under the 7th Avenue subway, and a very dusty place. The air conditioner there would get clogged up in no time at all. If there were PCBs in the dust I was inhaling, they haven't affected me yet and that was fifty-eight years ago.

While PCBs are all toxic, not all forms of them are equally toxic; ingestion is the main means of exposure, as well. But it's the same thing like with the toxicity of mercury, lead, chemical components of cigarettes, etc... it's a statistical risk, that is to say it's a probability. Doesn't happen to everyone, but there's a whole slew of information out there that shows these sort of things are very toxic and should be dealt with accordingly. That being said, a case like this most likely isn't something to be alarmist about, it's just a thing that happened and is dealt with accordingly. It's almost a given that any site with a history of railroad use going back more than a half a century is going to be contaminated to high-hell (if it hasn't already been decontaminated, that is).

(And, to comment on the ingestion thing, that's why it's such a major deal to not disturb underwater soils contaminated with PCBs, as it can readily get into the food chain and start having effects.)

PCBs were used as fire retardants in PRR electric locomotive and MU operations, and probably in plenty of other applications, and contamination from them and of surrounding groundwater is what turned the old Paoli Yard into a Superfund site and caused SEPTA to move those operations to Frazer as well as have to clean up rolling stock that had been stored and/or serviced at Paoli. I'm actually surprised PCBs were found on only two of 21 tracks at Penn Station unless there have been prior concerted efforts to clean them up - I wonder why tracks 1 and 10?

The article says that Amtrak "is planning to test and clean the remaining tracks...and are treating them as though they are contaminated with PCBs." One of the unions, I guess the maintenance of way guys, is pursuing litigation against Amtrak. There's actually more than 21 tracks in Penn Station, counting the ones that serve the post office. I hardly know anything about it; I never worked at A tower.
I have an idea that the substation at Kearny wasn't demolished because it had too many PCBs in it.

This was done years ago in Suburban Station, Philadelphia, Pa. The dirt was loaded into 55 gallon metal drums on the platforms. Someone them complained.
Is Amtrak comparing the results from dead end Track 1 where MU cars sometimes wait for a while with through Track 10 which is not occupied for such long times?

How does the PCB"s get on the track , leaking transformer oil?

Leaks from the transformer drain plugs,cracked fittings,and cracked housings.

A drain was blocked on 1 track. The contents of the blockage was tested and found to contain a high level of PCB's. Testing was done in other areas/tracks and 10 track was found as another area where levels were high. There are other areas/tracks where levels are thought to be high also.

Sandy disturbed the Hudson and East River bottoms,some of this material was backwashed thru the storm drains,
now,this material needs to be cleaned up.