derailment

A rather substantial railroad derailment occurred shortly after midnight yesterday (Thursday, April 3, 2008) on the CSX main through the nearby small town of Palmyra.
The CSX main is the old New York Central “Water-Level” across New York State; Water-Level because most of it was along river grades — i.e. it didn’t have to cross a mountain barrier. (Neither did the Erie Canal.)
The derailment made a royal mess.
18 hopper-cars loaded with coal flipped off the track and dumped all over. They were part of a 110-car freight-train.
It blocked the railroad. Overnite UPS shipments to New York City were blocked, as were shipments of fresh produce.
In the old days, New York Central had a bypass in case such a blockage occurred.
They used to send trains down the Auburn.
Quite a bit of the Auburn still exists (as shortline operator Finger Lakes Railway), but the segment between Rochester and Canandaigua is abandoned and torn up.
So CSX can’t work around the derailment; except to send trains over the old Pennsy main across Pennsylvania (now Norfolk Southern).
I think my old employer, the Daily-Messenger newspaper out of Canandaigua, inadvertently committed a faux pas.
Their “summary-paragraph” at the head of their story, suggested the hopper-cars were carrying 100,000 pounds of coal each.
That sounds like a lot, but immediately the red flags went up for this old railfan.
100,000 pounds is 50 tons. Years ago hopper-cars were carrying 70 tons.
Capacity kept ratcheting up, so that by the middle ‘70s it was 100 tons per car.
I have a hunch the hoppers were 100-ton. 50 tons is late 1800s.
Hopper capacity is now even more than 100 tons, although the ability of the railroad to support such weight factors in.
My first thought was perhaps a rail broke, but reports have a car-axle breaking.
That’s just as plausible, especially the axle breaking at a bad wheel-bearing.

The “Auburn”-Road was the first railroad across the state into Rochester. It took a rather circuitous route, and is now partly abandoned. A more direct railroad was built east from Rochester to Syracuse, so the Auburn became a detour bypass. The direct route became the mainline of the New York Central Railroad, but NYC also owned the Auburn. (The direct route is now CSX.) The Auburn served many small farming communities, but became moribund. What remains is now operated by independent shortline Finger Lakes Railway, but the line into Rochester is gone.

“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that tanked in about eight years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world.