CSX train collision, spill in Allendale County said not to pose breathing hazard
A collision of two CSX freight trains in Allendale County that caused a chemical spill Tuesday morning probably will take a couple of days to clean up, but the wreck poses no immediate health threat to the nearby Martin community, a state emergency management spokesman said.
Still, questions remain about the cause and circumstances of the crash at a site where two rail lines fork close to an industrial plant. Reports that hydrogen chloride spilled from a gashed tanker have not been verified, said emergency management spokesman Derrec Becker.
The conditions of the engineer and conductor who were injured were unclear on Tuesday, but initial reports indicate they walked from the crash site.
“Everything is clear as far as air quality,” Becker said around sunset from a makeshift operations center there. “Things are under control, however, it is still a very hazardous material scene. This is not a Graniteville-type situation, thank goodness.”
Tuesday’s crash has similarities to the disastrous train wreck in Aiken County a decade ago this month. Nine people died after a speeding Norfolk Southern train ran off a main track and crashed into parked train cars, causing deadly chlorine to spill.
Tom Allen, who heads the S.C. Office of Regulatory Staff’s railroad division, said the Allendale accident occurred when a moving locomotive diverted from a main track and onto a side track leading to the Archroma chemical plant.
The plant was evacuated, but employees might be allowed to return late Tuesday night or Wednesday, Becker said.
A spokesperson for CSX could not be reached Tuesday, but the scene was returned to the company around 8 p.m. and the investigation is in the hands of the FBI and other federal agencies. Both trains belong to CSX, Becker said.
Images of the crash site show about 14 toppled cars grouped near the fork in the rail lines with a white tanker car lying damaged farther away than those at the point of collision.
At least a dozen clean-up workers in full-body hazardous materials suits have been working at the site of the 2:47 a.m. collision, the emergency management spokesman said.
An estimated five-mile stretch of nearby S.C. 125 was closed for nearly 15 hours, reopening about 6 p.m., State Law Enforcement Division spokesman Thom Berry said.
Air monitors from the Savannah River Site are on the scene in a wooded location where the closest occupied building is Mt. Hope Baptist Church some two miles from the collision, Becker said. The church was being used as an emergency operations center.
Other agencies on the scene include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the FBI, the Federal Railroad Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, SLED and about a dozen local agencies, Becker and others said.
An FBI spokeswoman said the agency will not comment about its role in the investigation of the crash and spill. But Becker said the criminal investigatory agency’s presence is not unusual because rail lines are part of the federal transportation network.
“They’re not ruling anything out because we don’t know what caused the accident,” Becker said.
Allen said he is not sure why the FBI has taken over the investigation.
Though contracted cleanup companies were on site Tuesday, the heavy equipment needed to right the toppled cars had not arrived by sundown, Becker said.
Allen, of the state Office of Regulatory Staff, said the moving train crashed into six standing tank cars on the side track. It had not been officially disclosed Tuesday afternoon how many cars derailed or how fast the train was moving. The maximum speed for that stretch of track is 49 mph, the regulatory agency said.
Allen said it was too early to say what caused the moving train to divert to the side track. A switch was aligned properly when a previous engine moved through the area several hours earlier, but something went wrong as the 3 a.m. train traveled through the rural Martin community.
“When the three o’clock train came through, something wasn’t right and it caused the train to derail,” Allen said. “We are not sure what that something is.”
According to the regulatory staff’s incident report, the engineer and conductor were able to make their way to a nearby road for help.
This story was originally published January 27, 2015 at 8:21 PM with the headline "CSX train collision, spill in Allendale County said not to pose breathing hazard."