Still more Wednesday rail news:
— U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and U.S. Rep. Brian Higgins (D-Buffalo) are calling on the Federal Railroad Administration to investigate Monday night’s derailment of a Buffalo & Pittsburgh train in East Aurora, N.Y. A locomotive and 15 cars derailed in the incident, which led to the evacuation of a four-block area around the accident site because of the presence of petroleum products in the manifest freight, although the only spill was fuel from the locomotive. [See “Mt. Rainier Railroad shuts down for the ‘foreseeable future,’” News Wire Digest, May 19, 2020.] A statement from Higgins’ office said an investigation will “help inform safety policies and protocols to prevent future accidents,” his letter to FRA Administrator Ronald Batory said “residents have a right to know … why a neighborhood was forced to evacuate, and what corrective steps are being taken to prevent an occurrence like this from happening in the future.” Schumer said in a statement, “With better safety measures, accidents like the one in East Aurora are preventable. … New Yorkers deserve to sleep in peace and not worry about the possibility of a freight train overturning into their backyard.”
— Bay Area Rapid Transit service to Milpitas and San Jose is set to begin on June 13, ending a 20-year saga to extend the rail system into Santa Clara County. The San Jose Mercury News reports that BART officials on Tuesday set the date for service to the new southern terminus, the San Jose/Berryessa station. Groundbreaking on the 10-mile extension to San Jose was held in 2012, with an original two-year timeframe for completion. But the project dragged on, with the most recent delay coming when BART quietly admitted late last year it would miss its December 2019 start date. [See “BART extension into San Jose won’t make 2019 date to open,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 19, 2019.]
— Officials of Vancouver, British Columbia, transit system TransLink are asking passengers to have realistic expectations about social distancing as the area’s economy reopens after its COVID-19 shutdown. “We do have to be upfront and say that distancing is not always going to be possible on transit,” TransLink spokesman Ben Murphy told CTV News, saying masks are recommended for passengers. As of Tuesday, TransLink’s SkyTrain had returned to about 90% of pre-pandemic service levels; they are expected to be at 100% next week.
