CSX tight-lipped about derailments?

We have had 2 major derailments here in the city of Erie in the last couple of years. News accounts of these are sketchy as CSX offers absolutely no information about these accidents. It kind of runs opposite of their recent advertising trying to promote themselves as a good neighbor. Given that who know what is rolling through this city I feel at least some company spokesman could let us know what is going on when these event occur. Just my 2 cents worth.

I don't know if three dumped construction trash cars qualify as "major". The only reason for the service outage taking as long as it did was the damaged interlocking. If my info on what was involved is wrong then all apologies, I just know what the RR gossip on this incident was.

Not to quibble, but any mainline derailment is a major incident. Only the severity differs.

In this case, did the CSX derailment also block the NS (x-NKP) mainline?

I use the word "major" to describe the derailments because of the mess they made, the blocked at grade crossings, the need for public services (fire, hazmat, etc.) and the amount of damage done. It may have been only 3 garbage cars tipped over (plus one loco off the tracks) but what a mess it made around the site, it looked like a tornado hit the train. If that train had derailed 2 or 300 feet further east a lot of vehicles would have gotten wiped out at the busy Pittsburgh ave crossing. It also makes me understand why railroad workers aren't too keen on people standing too close to the tracks while train fanning.
Yes the adjacent NS tracks were also closed for 12 hours or so.

waterlevelroute wrote:I use the word "major" to describe the derailments because of the mess they made, the blocked at grade crossings, the need for public services (fire, hazmat, etc.) and the amount of damage done. It may have been only 3 garbage cars tipped over (plus one loco off the tracks) but what a mess it made around the site, it looked like a tornado hit the train. If that train had derailed 2 or 300 feet further east a lot of vehicles would have gotten wiped out at the busy Pittsburgh ave crossing. It also makes me understand why railroad workers aren't too keen on people standing too close to the tracks while train fanning.
Yes the adjacent NS tracks were also closed for 12 hours or so.

We at NS used to refer to CSX as "the derailment road" because they seemed to have so many! While all railroads are subject to derailments, CSX seems to be plagued with them and it seems to be due to deferred maintenance. NS, and its predecessor Southern, was persnickety about track and very OCD about their physical plant. Any derailment cause much consternation on Southern (where I hired) and lots of investigation as to the cause. They would place blame, and run anyone off who caused such with 10, 15, 30 day suspensions. NS was always VERY anal about it and "grumpy" when it came to it!

Gadfly wrote:

waterlevelroute wrote:I use the word "major" to describe the derailments because of the mess they made, the blocked at grade crossings, the need for public services (fire, hazmat, etc.) and the amount of damage done. It may have been only 3 garbage cars tipped over (plus one loco off the tracks) but what a mess it made around the site, it looked like a tornado hit the train. If that train had derailed 2 or 300 feet further east a lot of vehicles would have gotten wiped out at the busy Pittsburgh ave crossing. It also makes me understand why railroad workers aren't too keen on people standing too close to the tracks while train fanning.
Yes the adjacent NS tracks were also closed for 12 hours or so.

We at NS used to refer to CSX as "the derailment road" because they seemed to have so many! While all railroads are subject to derailments, CSX seems to be plagued with them and it seems to be due to deferred maintenance. NS, and its predecessor Southern, was persnickety about track and very OCD about their physical plant. Any derailment cause much consternation on Southern (where I hired) and lots of investigation as to the cause. They would place blame, and run anyone off who caused such with 10, 15, 30 day suspensions. NS was always VERY anal about it and "grumpy" when it came to it!

I agree 110%. Back in the mid 70s when we were doing it with pick and shovel over on the SCL the Southern had backhoe's and dumptrucks. I paled around with an asst. track supervisor
on the Southern back then and once mentioned the difference between us and them. He told me the Southern would always spend a dollar to make a dime cause in the end the dimes would add up. He also mentioned that they'd keep slow ordering a piece of track until they couldn't go any lower and then come in, replace everything with new and raise the speed back up. He said by doing it that way they figured, with the exception of routine maintenance, that portion of track wouldn't need any major work for about 5 years.

Waterlevel- although it's been 14 years, CSX took over their part of the CR split and famously said that CR was "overmaintained" (is there really such a thing??!!!). We all saw what transpired in the years after that. Yes all railroads have their share of derailments but it seems to be a nonstop thing on CSX for some reason. Not how things should be.....

I know a former Conrail employee. He speaks proudly of the maintenance and condition of the physical plant under Conrail. The current state is sad.

The curious thing about this particular accident is that this section had maintenance work just completed. They spent most of the summer replacing ties and replacing sections of rail.

Derailments have many causes - only a portion of them are track related.

The "lawyer/sharks" at Jacksonville have sent memo's to all the PR people to say as little as possible so
the local news can't "expand" on the cause,and the "Ambulance chasers" can't create lawsuits using the
local news as a source.

Backshophoss wrote:The "lawyer/sharks" at Jacksonville have sent memo's to all the PR people to say as little as possible so
the local news can't "expand" on the cause,and the "Ambulance chasers" can't create lawsuits using the
local news as a source.

Ambulance chasers create suits on their own - facts only get in the way.

CSX has a very bad reputation when it comes to derailments and they're trying to change that. The best way to deal with derailments is to clean them up as quickly as possible, preferably without the hassle of the media taking things out of context/not putting them in perspective. In recent months, I've seen news stations across America going ape**** whenever there's so much as a single freight car derailing - the first thing they always ask is "another Lac-Mégantic is right around the corner?"

mmi16 wrote: Ambulance chasers create suits on their own - facts only get in the way.

You owe me a new monitor - that zinger of yours got cookies and milk all over my screen.

I can atest that they aren't in a hurry to clean things up. The speed limit through the damaged area is down to 25 mph for 8 days and counting. When you have 60 or so trains a day passing by this has made for huge traffic tie ups and all he Erie grade crossings. On the other hand as a avid train watcher- it's pure fun. There are no signs of any machinery to come in and clean up the debris or the 3 trash cars still sitting on the right of way.

And another derailment happened this morning. Q439 was coming upon CP Nice in Philadelphia around 630 or so and put several cars on the ground, of which four were centerbeams that were on their side. The train derailed on a curve....