RAVENNA TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Approximately 18 cars of a Norfolk Southern train derailed Tuesday evening in northeast Ohio, WKYC-TV reports. A railroad representative told the station that no injuries were reported and no hazardous materials were involved.
The Portage County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management reported on its Facebook page that the derailment occurred about 7:11 p.m. and involved cars carrying rock salt and other cargo. No hazardous materials were involved, the agency said, and no injuries were reported. State Route 44 was closed at the scene and and remains closed as of this morning, disrupting school bus routes and other traffic.
The line is Norfolk Southern’s primary route linking Pittsburgh with Cleveland and Chicago. It was acquired in the Conrail split in 1999.
The derailment occurred between the Cleveland and Alliance stations on the Capitol Limited route. Amtrak informed passengers on its Amtrak Alerts Twitter feed that the westbound Capitol Limited that departed Washington on Monday and was scheduled to arrive in Chicago this morning (Wednesday, Nov. 2) was instead terminated in Pittsburgh on Monday night, while the eastbound train scheduled to depart Chicago yesterday evening instead originated in Pittsburgh this morning. As of 7:30 a.m. CDT, the Nov. 2 departures for both trains are still shown as operating on time.
Ravenna Township is about 15 miles east of Akron, Ohio, although the rail line does not serve that city.
The other option would have been to run up to Ashtabula and then west on CSX to Cleveland. This routing has been utilized in the past. The big issue today is the railroads having anyone available to be a pilot. When NS had a derailment several years ago we were to detour on the Porter Branch, picking up a pilot at Elkhart. Nearing Elkhart we called the dispatcher who knew absolutely nothing about it. So we sat at Elkhart until a decision was made to continue west and we would get an NS RFE for a pilot at Porter. We got there and was told no one was available and a route should be open soon. So we were run as far west as possible until one track was opened.
So, not only is there a shortage of t&e there also seems to be a serious lack of communication.
Due to the PSR decimation of local road foremen and trainmasters per EHH to bad he didn’t croak 6 months earlier so he acted in panic mode for his short stint on CSX
So why didn’t Amtrak detour on the former B&O? It was one an Amtrak route. The Capitol could have detoured on the B&O to Fostoria then on an ex C&O route to Toledo and its current route to Chicago.
Because they arent qualified on that track for one.
Once upon a time the railroad that handled an Amtrak detour provided a pilot. Used to happen all the time. Now not so much.
Mike I don’t think they would supply a pilot at this time. H*** they can’t even get enough people to run there own trains let alone Amtrak.
They did it recently to get around another derail on the Chicago line but all they had to do was go through Belltucky. It’s probably dependent on where and how long it will take. When this accident happened they would have been way out and would have had to detour through Mansfield and into Bellevue. There may not even have been a clear track to get them to Alliance to divert. Same for the eastbound AT. Oh and the track to Mansfield is NOT being well maintained at all.
It was probably just easier to bus people than deal with all of that. Both mains are wiped out so they won’t be going through there tonight either unless there’s a miracle.
They’ve cut crew staffing to the point that there aren’t enough people to cover contingencies such as providing pilots.
And how does PSR be the root cause. And you are an experirnce railroader or work for the FRA or wreck cleanup company?
Yes and what exactly are you? Will you stop pretending to know what you are talking about when someone dies or a whole town is wiped out?
Unlike many here I don’t just sit along the tracks and wave at trains. Is that you Howard?
Maybe you should stop playing dumb since you are obviously interested in the topic and there are literally hundreds of pages online explaining how PSR is the issue.
Are you naive enough to believe that all of these accidents are coincidence when they cut all maintenance on engines, cars, and rail by 2/3?
40 years as an Engineer, seven class1’s ,USRA formation and split of Conrail, union officer, and now shortline regulatory and operations consultant and equipment leasing, and finally work with a major wreck clean up rigging company. Not a fan of “Elmo” style PSR but scheduled freight was alive and well when Al Perlman ran my home road the NYC “Road to the Future” and PCRR had wrecks every day buddy. I’d be run off the railroad if I sat and watched and waved at trains. Knock on wood I’m not seeing frequent wrecks here on CSX water level route, the track has never been as good as it now is here. You still never explained the cause of THIS wreck
So when you hear about the railroad contract negotiations this is a gigantic issue.
Everything including engine, car and track maintenance has been ignored in the name of profits. And we are stuck riding on these death traps and the public is going to eventually pay very high price for this greed.
Just a few weeks ago on the same line there was a derailment in Sandusky Ohio that only by the grace of God didn’t kill someone as cars tumbled off of an overpass into the road below. The engine had a defect and was told to go and it ended up with a catastrophic failure that caused the derailment.
Are you paying attention yet?
Chris the root cause is above and yes they are increasing. For the last two plus years we have had record derailments, separations, engine failures, broken drawbars etc all caused by PSR
I’ll comment again, are significant derailments happening with greater frequency, or being reported more frequently? What are the root causes?
Just an onservation.
So much for removing so-called redundancies from the system.