PITTSBURGH — The Port Authority of Allegheny County will receive more than $2.5 million from Norfolk Southern in reimbursement for damages to its light-rail system from an NS derailment in August 2018.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the port authority board’s performance oversight committee recommended the settlement be approved by the full board at its meeting next week. Chief legal officer Mike Cetra told the committee that “grueling” discussions with the railroad led to the final figure; the Port Authority submitted a $3 million claim to the railroad in February, but some items had been submitted twice.
The Aug. 5 derailment sent intermodal cars and containers down a hill onto the light rail line’s Station Square station, damaging track, overhead lines, and some parts of the station. Service was rerouted for three weeks while repairs were made. [See “Commute returns to normal as Pittsburgh completes light rail repairs,” Trains News Wire, Aug. 28, 2018.] A broken rail was blamed for the derailment. [See “FRA report suggests Pittsburgh derailment could have been avoided,” Trains News Wire, Sept. 9, 2019.]
They better be getting more than $2.5 million!
How ironic is it that we were at Kennywood that weekend for my railroad’s family day, the NS derails in Station Square and Thomas the Train was derailed too and not operating. We found it quite humurous.
N S certainly dodged a bullet with this derailment! Two and one half million is “chicken feed”,compared to what it could have been, if this derailment had happened about 10/15 seconds earlier. An inbound train had just passed this this location about 10 seconds before the derailment.