No danger, but derailment sparks safety talks

NORTH CANAAN — A derailment in the Housatonic Railroad Company’s High Street rail yard Jan. 3 was blamed on a section of track that shattered.Cold and a latent defect in the rail section caused the rare type of failure. The train was northbound at about 7 p.m., hauling an assortment of freight, when its weight triggered the track failure. The derailment occurred just north of the crossing over the access road into the Canaan Country Club. Four cars derailed, including a box car that fell off the track onto its side on the west side of the rail line.No one was injured and no roads were blocked.“If it’s going to happen, in the rail yard is the best place,” said Ed Rodriguez, vice president and general counsel for Housatonic. He went on to say even extreme cold will not affect a rail, but that the weather served to weaken a defect that could never have been detected.“We inspect track visually and use sophisticated electronic equipment to test track. That particular section, like most of our track, was tested at least twice in the last 18 months, which is more than routine. Being in the rail yard, that particular section gets plenty of visual inspection.”Unlike the derailment on the spur in the center of town in May 2011, which required a specialized service company, Housatonic workers were able to handle this cleanup and repair themselves. The rail line was back in service at about 4:30 p.m. Jan. 4, according to Matt Boardman, the head of engineering at the North Canaan facility.The incident will spark some discussion on handling of such matters. Last September, a mass casualty drill that included the train was held in the center of town, a short distance north of the rail yard. In that scenario, the train collided with a vehicle carrying a chemical that leaked and formed a toxic cloud.It seems it was not clear going forward when a derailment would trigger an emergency dispatch. Both the Canaan Fire Company and the railroad said they would review procedures.Fire Chief Lee Baldwin was not happy to hear about the derailment hours after it happened. At about 12:30 p.m. Friday, Deputy Chief Brian Allyn got a phone call from someone who drove by the scene. He checked it out, found everything under control and initiated a dispatch, immediately followed by a message that no further response was needed, just to have it on the record.Baldwin said that in talking to the rail workers, he believes they responded appropriately in terms of public safety.“They called 911 and the DOT [Department of Transportation]. There was no need for fire or ambulance response. There was one tanker carrying isopropyl alcohol, which is a low haz mat [hazardous materials] risk. The workers determined it wasn’t leaking. They would know as well as anyone, and there’s no reason for them to hesitate to call us if they suspected it might be,” Baldwin said.“In the future, we want the chief officer to be notified to investigate any rail incident. We are working on dispatch procedures for that.”