BRISTOL -- Large metal cars carrying construction debris lay on their sides. Some of the debris spilling out of the cars noticeable from the air.
All of this happened along rails just near Riverside Drive, behind the American Legion Post 2 in Bristol. The line runs between two dead end roads. Hooker Court and Queen Street.
The seven-car train was heading east around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday. The Bristol Deputy Fire Chief, John Ziogas told FOX61 that one of the cars partially derailed along the line. When the conductors noticed he stopped. That’s when the six cars toppled over.
Now the cleanup process begins.
“They are putting new track on and replacing the ones that are damaged,” said Deputy Chief Ziogas.
Once the new rails are laid, they move onto the wheels which they call “trucks”. They place two of them onto the new line. Then they use cranes to lift the cars back onto the wheels and send it down the line. They have to do this meticulous process for every toppled car until the job is done.
“When they're done with all the trains they'll bring in a locomotive. Hook back up and bring them to the yard in Plainville,” said Deputy Chief Ziogas.
The main priority has been keeping the power on for neighbors and Bristol Hospital just over the hill. Instead of cutting power to the area Eversource rerouted it so that no one would experience an outage for any length of time.
Passenger trains will not be affected by the derailment. PanAm owns the line and leases out the cars to industries shipping across New England. A lengthy cleanup could hurt local business.
“This is affecting some of the industries that get their resources to do their production in Bristol,” said Ziogas.
Cleanup could take somewhere between three to five days. There were no injuries or hazmat materials on board. What caused the train to derail is still under investigation.
