NYS&W derailment, Syracuse - 11/11

WSYR radio is reporting I-81 north and south closed and a neighborhood on the SU Hill being evacuated because NYS&W apparently has dumped some cars somewhere in the vincinity of the old SU platform stop, including two propane tank cars on their sides.

Update, Berwin and Benedict avenues are reported as evacuated. Still not 100% clear on the actual wreck location, initial reports mentioned that 81 crosses the track near it, but it could be further south as the line parallells I-81 for about a mile or so coming into the city. I'm sure the TV news will have pictures that will help pin it down, no one's getting anywhere close with everything closed off.

The evac is precautionary while the derailed cars are drained and righted, as a propane tank car can make a pretty big boom.

CXR ? http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/ ... r_syr.html

So they know the car isn't leaking and is secure, they're not going to unload it until after the SU football game, but I-81 is still closed and major backups ensuing. Mayor Miner on the TV rattled off so many agencies and people responding I half expected them to show a clip from "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" where you see The Three Stooges at the ready as airport firemen. And of course it's being blamed on CSX.

I'm still not 100% sure exactly where the cars came off, but it appears to be futher down, maybe between where Colvin goes under and where the line curves east to cut over to Jamesville. Power was two NYS&W painted units bracketing a blue CEFX unit.

lvrr325 wrote:I'm still not 100% sure exactly where the cars came off, but it appears to be futher down, maybe between where Colvin goes under and where the line curves east to cut over to Jamesville. Power was two NYS&W painted units bracketing a blue CEFX unit.

One report referred to "Colvin Annex". Acme Mapper shows Colvin going under the tracks and a smaller side street, also called Colvin, dead-ending at the tracks. Photos of the dumped hopper seem to fit that location.

They're lucky the tanker didn't roll off the bridge...

I got a little bit of info from a NYS official today. Seems the cars that went off were the last two in the train and they went on the ground about a mile or so from where they went over. Cause yet unknown.

Just to put a cap on this, the cars did tip over at Colvin Annex; evac order was lifted about 4:30 AM, and it's all long since cleaned up, except for some soybeans out of the covered hopper that tipped over. WSYR-TV never did get the railroad right, though.

Local emergency officials are saying that they couldn't have set up a "better" worst-case scenario for a drill. Bad location, bad timing, the list goes on. From their standpoint, everything went quite well, given the circumstances.

I was able to go to the site of the derailment on Saturday afternoon 11/12/2011
As stated above, much of it was cleaned up
I thought the sand colored material at the site was used to clean up a spill
I see from the above posts it was soy beans
here is a link to some photos

http://images.nikonians.org/galleries/s ... ?cat=20610

does anybody know what cause of the derailment?