Railroad crossing downtown is repaired, for now

NORTH CANAAN — A railroad crossing in the center of town was repaired last week by a crew from the Housatonic Railroad Co., which operates freight service on the line. A company official said the badly deteriorated roadway at the grade crossing caused a broken rail blamed for the May 13 train derailment.“The drainage issue there is a serious one,” said Colin Pease, vice president of special projects for the North Canaan-based Housatonic Railroad. “It undermines everything. The crossing has been number one or two on the DOT’s priority list for 10 or 12 years now.”The state Department of Transportation (DOT) owns the rail line, and leases it to Housatonic. Last December, the two got into a letter writing tussle over who is responsible for pavement repairs there. Housatonic officials wanted to know when the long-planned upgrade would be completed. The DOT said the design phase for the difficult project had “timed-out,” the upgrade was not going to happen soon and the railroad, per its lease agreement, needed to do the necessary repaving.“We do believe the state should fix it,” Pease said. “After the derailment, we had to get in there and do the work, but it won’t last. The basic problem is the crossing has failed.”An engine and six empty tanker cars were traveling south on the crossing that Friday evening. It was headed for a spur that curves around in front of Canaan Union Station and back across Main Street (Route 44) to Specialty Minerals, where the cars are filled with processed lime. The problem occured when one of the cars derailed just before the south side of the crossing. It missed the spur that begins at the edge of the road. The cars were dragged over the ties for the length of the spur and began to tip over just before the second crossing. The train was stopped just as the last car cleared the crossing, with several of the cars lying against an embankment. A specialized rigging company came in the following Monday to remove the cars. Pease could not comment on particulars of how the derailment was handled by train operators. He did say that he does not believe insurance will cover the cost of cleaning up a derailment, but he could not provide a cost estimate for the work.At the DOT, Gilbert Smart of the Rail Regulatory Division said his office investigated, and determined that a broken rail caused the derailment. “The railroad let us know it happened and we assisted in getting the permits to close the road so they could change out both rails in the crossing,” Smart said. “We can’t conclude that the drainage problems there were the cause, but its old rail, the crossing gets a lot of use by trains and vehicles and the drainage is a big problem.”He also spoke to the question of why the train, which would have been moving very slowly, was not stopped before the second crossing.“It would not be the most unusual thing in the world for the train operator to not notice right away. The cars may not have all been on the rails, but the wheels were rolling, the cars were still in line and it makes sense that the problem was not noticed until the cars started to tip over.”DOT Project Engineer Randy Eick, who has worked on this project for 20 years, spoke with The Lakeville Journal. He said that the railroad needed to comply with its lease and repair the crossing.“Just because we have a project going doesn’t circumvent that agreement,” Eick said. But he does not disagree that the crossing has failed, or that drainage issues were likely the cause of the derailment. He offered more perspective on the situation. “It’s not necessarily the worst crossing in the state,” Eick said. “One of the reasons it’s at the top of the priority list is because there are no lights or gates there. It’s just as much a safety issue in terms of vehicles that use the road and the railroad workers who have to flag traffic to a stop.”A partial upgrade was done recently when traffic lights were upgraded at the nearby intersection of routes 7 and 44. The circuitry is in place to tie the traffic signals in with lights and gates at the crossing. Smart pointed out that the DOT proposed gates and lights at the crossing in 1995, but the plan was adamantly opposed by town officials. They, in turn, were responding to public opposition.“It would have been done long ago, if the town had not insisted it not happen,” Smart said.But what has delayed the last of the work is finding an effective and economical way to address the groundwater that collects there. Plans for draining that crossing, and the spur crossing to the east, have come down to the currently proposed approach of running pipe about 1,000 feet south to the Blackberry River.DOT engineers work simultaneously on many projects that are in the design and permitting stages. Needed permits take about a year to obtain. “We can do only one project a year, based on our funding,” Eick said. “What drives the order in which they get to the implementation stage is when all the approvals are in place and funding is available. “Right now, we have two projects that have moved ahead of the North Canaan project. Because we need to drain it into the river, we need extensive permitting from the DEP [Department of Environmental Protection], and that’s going to be a lengthy process.”The bigger picture for Housatonic Railroad is one of support from the government, Pease said, as it continues to move forward with a plan to return passenger service to the Berkshire line. Housatonic has rail line from Pittsfield, Mass., to New York City, and market surveys that show tremendous public support for the idea of reviving train travel between those cities. But before that can happen there is a long list of logistical issues that include siting platforms and parking, and making improvements to numerous grade crossings (which will all require lights and gates).“Rail service, for freight and passengers, is coming back full circle,” Pease said. “Other states seem to be doing a lot more crossing work to prepare for that than Connecticut. Most of the federal money the DOT has received has been spent elsewhere. Jim Redeker, the new acting DOT commissioner seems to understand the need. We are hopeful and think he is listening.”