Derailment in Westford Ma 2-20-14

dowlingm wrote:It is the municipalities who will be responding to any incidents. At the same time they cannot enforce any regulation or sanction because it happens at a federal level. This town manager may not have followed railroad protocol but that situation might have been avoided if there had been prompt information flow to the town/fire service.

newpylong wrote:If these municipalities really have their panties in a bunch so much they need to lobby their legislators to change the laws.

Good luck against the K Street lobbyists.

And it is the railroads who will be paying for any incidents, especially if gross negligence is involved. It is not in their best interest to hide anything. They found that out the hard way even with small oil spills.

Trespassing is general designation of the ownership of property, not railroad protocol... if I suspect my neighbor is doing something illegal or hiding something that may harm my health I don't strut onto their property, I call the authorities.

We've been through this and the general consensus is the Westford fiasco could have been avoided had the town been notified. My comments were directed more towards the growing squeeze the railroads are getting in cases all over the country when they are just trying to do business by what is the law.

newpylong wrote:if I suspect my neighbor is doing something illegal or hiding something that may harm my health I don't strut onto their property, I call the authorities.

Except to the local residents, the local fire chief and town manager likely counted as authorities, and their telephone logs likely reflected that.

Agreed. Perhaps a poor analogy on my part.

DogBert wrote:So this genius walks into an accident site presumably where heavy machinery is being used and is surprised she's told to leave?

That genius has the backing of the Massachusetts congressional delegation along with several others. Oh, I forgot, mighty Pan Am is federally regulated. What she should have done is had Westford PD block the crossings on both sides of the derailment until she received the answers that she wanted. Who would have stopped them? The Pan Am managers? Please. They played softball with Pan Am for whatever reason. I highly doubt the fire chief walked her anywhere near heavy equipment in operation, he is a very capable man.

Westford has always had an axe to grind against PanAm as long as I can remember. The NIMBY mentality is also a factor.


J

TPR37777 wrote:

DogBert wrote:So this genius walks into an accident site presumably where heavy machinery is being used and is surprised she's told to leave?

That genius has the backing of the Massachusetts congressional delegation along with several others. Oh, I forgot, mighty Pan Am is federally regulated. What she should have done is had Westford PD block the crossings on both sides of the derailment until she received the answers that she wanted. Who would have stopped them? The Pan Am managers? Please. They played softball with Pan Am for whatever reason. I highly doubt the fire chief walked her anywhere near heavy equipment in operation, he is a very capable man.

A derailment of this magnitude often has Railroad Police on the scene. In case you don't know, the B&M police have inter-state authority under 49 U.S. Code § 28101 on their property and off their property if the situation warrants that authority. If a local police department was blocking a railroad's ability to get to their property, this would be one of those cases.

This type of sparring is nothing new. Westford has gone at it with the railroad for years. The Town Manager is probably a nice person and just doing her job, but nice people have axes to grind too.

Do you think that part of the problem is the affluence of Westford? I know CSX goes through some very affluent communities on the B&A, have they had similar issues? Or is it limited to Pan Am? I am not being rhetorical, I really don't follow the Metrowest News much. I do recall Framingham whining about something a few years ago but I can't remember what it was.

TPR37777 wrote:Do you think that part of the problem is the affluence of Westford? I know CSX goes through some very affluent communities on the B&A, have they had similar issues? Or is it limited to Pan Am? I am not being rhetorical, I really don't follow the Metrowest News much. I do recall Framingham whining about something a few years ago but I can't remember what it was.

I don't know if CSX has similar problems along the B&A, but affluent neighborhoods playing hardball with railroads are hardly limited to Westford. Then again, factories, aggregates business, pipelines, oil wells, etc...all meet with trouble these days. Look at Global Ethanol in MA, AMTK in Brunswick, Portland and its questionable tar sands pipeline ban... Hell you can't even spray grub-x on your lawn without an environmental permit, and even then the neighbors complain in the affluent areas of southern coastal ME. Never mind the Boston 'burbs...

I heard second hand from those who were there, that the town official approached the derailment site like a raving lunatic. Just what I heard.

The fire chief may have been within his rights. On the other hand, I think that no non railroader should walk unescorted onto the property. They ( town manager and fire chief) might not know to always expect a movement. They could think that no movement would come because of the line blockage, due to the derailment. Next they get run over by the wreck train. Guilford then would be dragged into civil court.

The chief might have been more welcome if he had called Billerica and said that he was going on site, and wanted to speak with whomever was in charge, at the derailment. That way he could be consulted, yet his safety would be secure.

engineer spike et al. i can't imagine any pas move in a derailment area that could threaten anyone. in fact it calls to mind the old erie joke-' man laid down on the tracks to commit suicide, he starved to death.' most of the posts here and in the new england thread seem to excuse the railroad's behavoir which, as i have posted, was bizarre. there was no danger to the town manager.unfortunately, we now have a situation that will percolate for some time. ken patrick

KEN-
Derailed cars were being towed east and clear of the bridge (hence Bridge Street) over the Stoney Brook so they could more safely be rerailed. While the Town Manager was not in imminent danger, did she have either the hazmat or wreck remediation skills to be of assistance, or did she pose a distraction while on company property to those who would otherwise have been using their undistracted attention in the use of their hazmat and wreck remediation skills?
I don't think there are many railroad apologists posting on these forums, but perhaps they do outnumber the contrarians.

From the Lowell Sun:

Lowell Sun wrote:Town Manager Jodi Ross confirmed with The Sun Tuesday night town officials will meet with Pan Am Railways on May 6.

Limited details were available Tuesday night but Ross confirmed a meeting was set with Pan Am officials in Westford on the day of town election. Ross, in a joint effort with U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, Rep. Niki Tsongas, state Rep. James Arciero and Sen. Eileen Donoghue, all pushed for a meeting with the company, following a train derailment in February, to mend its "broken relationship."
. . .
Ross said Tuesday she is not sure if Pan Am President David Fink will be at the meeting but Vice President Cynthia Scarano is scheduled to be there to talk with officials. Scarano has not returned repeated calls for comment since accusations arose from town officials that the company has been difficult to work with in the last few years.

Ross said she and Fire Chief Joe Targ were threatened with arrest when they happened upon the scene in February and searched the tracks for a rail official for more answers. They were not notified of the event which occurred late at night -- Targ drove by the scene around 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 20 and then alerted town officials, who readied nearby residents for evacuation that day.

Read the rest of the article at: http://www.lowellsun.com/breakingnews/c ... ives-may-6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"Targ drove by the scene around 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 20 and then alerted town officials, who readied nearby residents for evacuation that day."

I thought there wasn't a need for evacuation??

frrc wrote:Once again, the news media reports only 1 side of the story, and puts blame on the railroads..

It's difficult to report both sides when one side refuses to talk about it.

BM6569 wrote:I thought there wasn't a need for evacuation??

Ultimately there wasn't, but the railroad wouldn't talk to town officials, so erring on the side of caution they went door to door telling residents to be prepared to leave if the need should arise.

Dick H wrote:A "courtesy" call to Westford FD and a conference on site
between a PAR supervisor and the FD OIC discussing the
incident, could have probably avoided all this and more.
As they say in politics, the coverup is worse than the deed.

I couldn't have said it better.