Derailment in Paulsboro

News report today says the bridge is expected to be back in service in two days. Huh.
http://www.nj.com/gloucester-county/ind ... er_default

Tommy Meehan wrote:

The Unified Command announced Saturday that the rail car containing ethanol has been successfully removed from the East Jefferson Street Bridge Derailment incident site in Paulsboro, N.J......Bridge and track repair is continuing throughout the day and evening. The bridge is being inspected by an independent bridge inspection firm in preparation for returning trains to service in the next two days.

http://www.paulsbororesponse.com/conten ... railment-1

Perhaps the "next 2 days" was supposed to describe "is being inspected", not "returning to service".
Even if it were physically possible to fix things in a few days, I would hope they would not be allowed to return to service before they could get to the bottom of what happened and be able to guarantee that this wouldn't happen again, which probably would take longer.
JS

Track repairs continued overnight. Underwater and surface inspections will continue today in preparation for restoring train service over the next two days.... Before any trains run, the FRA will inspect the track and the locking mechanism and determine that they meet the regulatory requirements for the resumption of train operations.....Following the successful completion of this process, the bridge will be put back in service. Inspectors will visually monitor bridge operations for 24 hours as trains travel across the bridge.

The above quote is from today's update by the Unified Command at Paulsboro (which is headed by the U.S. Coast Guard). Here's the link http://www.paulsbororesponse.com/conten ... railment-2 and it seems fairly clear the bridge will be back in service either tomorrow or Tuesday.

The statement says the fifth and final derailed car was removed today and was placed on a barge. The inspection process was already started. It sounds to me like there are no structural problems, that the problem was not structural; i.e. the bridge did not "collapse." My impression is the problems were more related to electronic control issues.

A buddy of mine spent an entire career building foundations for various projects. The first job he had was the Verrazano Bridge. He told me not to forget, bridges have been around since the Roman era. They're not high-tech. Engineers understand the requirements very well. Finding the problem that caused this derailment and fixing it should not be too hard. U.S. bridges have an excellent safety record.

Maybe Conrail should've taken the bridge out-of-service and had engineers do a more thorough inspection after what seems like a continual series of problems during November. Maybe. I wasn't there, so I don't really know. I have enough respect for the people involved that I'm not going to second-guess them.

.

Was this line, and, therefore, the bridge, double sometime in the distant past? If so, when was it singled? Sam

Per the SJRA Yahoo group, the first two trains have run over the bridge this evening ... a light engine move, and then a NB.

Going back to the pre-Penn Central era this line was the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines' Penns Grove Branch. I don't think it was ever double-track. I'm pretty sure the Mantua Creek moveable bridge was always single-track.

Today the line is Conrail's Penns Grove Secondary.

Amazing they have trains running tonight. Does anyone know if the bridge is moveable or are they operating it locked down?

Btw from another list I learned there is a yard west/south of Mantua Bridge in Paulsboro (according to TRAINS Oct 2012 issue four CSAO trains are based out of it) and that is undoubtedly where the locomotives from the derailed train were stored during the sixteen days the line was cut off.

Tommy Meehan wrote:...
Btw from another list I learned there is a yard west/south of Mantua Bridge in Paulsboro (according to TRAINS Oct 2012 issue four CSAO trains are based out of it) and that is undoubtedly where the locomotives from the derailed train were stored during the sixteen days the line was cut off.

undoubtedly

Thanks Bob for the photo. I asked a couple days ago if anyone knew what happened to the locomotives but there were no replies. I don't know the area very well and I was a little surprised when someone from another list informed me that there was a small yard just west of the bridge.

Do you know which of the locomotives in the photo from Dec. 11th were on the train that derailed on Nov. 30th? Does anyone know if the derailed train was WPCA11 out of Pavonia?

As I recall it was a fairly big train. I guess the north end was pulled back to Pavonia.

Tommy Meehan wrote:Going back to the pre-Penn Central era this line was the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines' Penns Grove Branch. I don't think it was ever double-track. I'm pretty sure the Mantua Creek moveable bridge was always single-track.

Today the line is Conrail's Penns Grove Secondary.

Thanks very much for the above, Mr. Meehan! Sam

The name's Tommy and you're welcome Sam.

(Mr. Meehan was my dad.)

Tommy,

The train that derailed was indeed WPCA11, with its usual power of CSX SD40-2 8817 and 8830.

Thanks again Bob. Yes I saw that in the archive. That's dated 12/16/12, this past Sunday, so I guess that was the northbound that was reported crossing the bridge that day?

Btw, here's the latest from the official site:

On Sunday, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) inspected the track and the bridge locking mechanism and determined they met the regulatory requirements for the resumption of train operations and the bridge was put back in rail service. Inspectors visually monitored bridge operations overnight as trains traveled across the bridge. The maximum speed on the bridge remains 10 mph or less.

On Monday morning, a train curfew was put in place to allow for the safe removal and re-railing of the three rail cars that were lifted from the water and placed on barges. The re-railing of these cars is now complete, the train curfew has been lifted and normal train operations have resumed.

Doesn't say whether the bridge is locked down but it seems to imply it's not. That it can still be opened for water traffic if necessary.

From Dec. 1 to Mar. 1 the bridge is maintained in the closed position and, as it is used almost exclusively for recreational boating, I guess there's not too many openings anyway this time of year.

http://www.paulsbororesponse.com/conten ... railment-3

Tommy Meehan wrote:
Doesn't say whether the bridge is locked down but it seems to imply it's not. That it can still be opened for water traffic if necessary.

In one of the pictures I saw on line (not sure if here or maybe the Yahoo South Jersey site or elsewhere, early in the clean-up process) they were removing the steel superstructure (the part above the tracks) of the bridge, which presumably was the part that supports it when it opens. WIth that gone it is hard to imagine it opening now. JS

news12 reported a train went across earlier today.

Below is a link to a photo chuchubob shot in 2006 that pretty clearly shows the A-frame structure. The bridge is a swing span I believe so I don't understand exactly what role the A-frame plays.


http://chuchubob.rrpicturearchives.net/ ... ?id=357001

This time of the year the bridge probably almost never has to be opened but to close a moveable bridge over a waterway requires U.S. Coast Guard permission. Barring specific information I wouldn't assume the bridge has been restored without being able to open. It's certainly a possibility, though.