UNION COUNTY, NJ — Crews likely will spend another week or so removing debris and broken rail cars after a freight train derailment just west of the Union train station on Friday afternoon, Dec. 8, forced a two-and-a-half day suspension of all traffic on the line that carries Raritan Valley Line commuters, officials said.
No one was injured in the accident, which drew a full emergency response from Union fire and police, and caused chaos on the Conrail-owned train line and the roads surrounding the station.
County officials responded by dispatching police and Union County Office of Emergency Management officials, who quickly determined that there were no health or environmental risks, Union County spokesman Seb D’Elia said.
Witnesses near the derailment heard what they described as a “crunch” just after 2 p.m.
The 141-car CSX train, which had a crew of two, derailed in three locations, Union fire Chief Mike Scanio and a CSX railroad spokeswoman said Dec. 11.
The train, which measured 8,600 feet or about 1.6 miles in length, was heading eastbound to Selkirk, N.Y., when the front portion jumped the tracks about a quarter of a mile west of the Union station.
“I was a little bit like ‘Wow, look what we have here,’” Scanio said. “Once the engineer and conductor showed us the manifests and they said they were just carrying gravel and rocks, I felt ‘OK, this isn’t as bad as I thought.’
“My first fear, as I was driving there, is that I was praying to God it was not a commuter train.”
Train cars of all types — box cars, tank cars and covered hoppers — were seen piled like toys, perpendicular to one another in some spots.
“(The derailment) was in multiple locations,” Scanio said. “There was a large span of debris, a half to three-quarters of mile between pile-ups. I was first told it was behind the gas company on Green Lane. And when I got there, I was like, ‘Wow this can’t be the same pileup. We have a major train derailment.”
Scanio said federal Homeland Security officials were on the scene Friday afternoon, but he had not heard from them since then.
Conrail spokeswoman Jocelyn Hill said by phone that the rail agency was cooperating with the Federal Railroad Administration in its investigation of the crash. She did not have any preliminary reason for the cause of the derailment.
Scanio said repair crews had towed away all train cars that were moveable while damaged cars were pushed to the side so repair work could begin immediately on the rails, which were mangled in spots. He estimated it would be two weeks before the damaged cars could be completely removed.
“They spent every bit of the entire weekend removing the cars and repairing the track,” Scanio said.
NJ Transit ran buses between Newark Penn Station and Cranford from Friday afternoon until restoring rail service for the morning rush-hour commute on Monday, Dec. 11.
Hill said that, although the rails were repaired by Sunday night, freight traffic was still being detoured around the area Monday.
“A lot of resources were brought to bear on this,” Hill said. “Restoring passenger service was the top priority.”
Scanio said the derailment is the biggest accident he’s seen in his 28 years in the department.
“We’ve had gasoline tankers roll on I-78 and fatal house fires, which are bad, but nothing like this,” he said.