26 September 2010

Crews Untangling St. Lazare Train Derailment

Derailment site - Date/photographer unknown.

St. Lazare Quebec - A cleanup operation to remove the wreckage of a derailed train near St. Lazare will continue at least until Sunday, a CP spokesperson said Saturday afternoon.
 
"Right now, the cleanup is proceeding safely," said Breanne Feigel, referring to the efforts of the railway and federal and provincial environment teams to untangle the ruin of a Toronto-bound CP train that derailed just before midnight on Thursday.
 
Two members of the train's crew were injured in the incident, which saw two locomotives and 11 container cars pile onto each other to form what one official described as "a 50-foot wall."
 
Officials have said there were no flammable liquids or toxic gases in the affected freight cars, and that the hazardous materials that were being transported did not spill onto the tracks.
 
Meanwhile, residents living in the neighbourhood near the accident site are again being allowed to enter and exit the area along their usual route. Valerie Samson, who lives in the subdivision of approximately 150 homes, said she and other residents were originally forced use an emergency route that passes through the nearby woods to get in and out.
 
"It's just a dirt road," said Samson. "It's pretty muddy, so if it were to have rained in the last 48 hours, it would have been impossible with a small car to go through."
 
Samson said members of the community have complained to city officials in St. Lazare about the condition of the emergency road, but nothing has been done to make it more passable.
 
"As I understand it, the exit of the road lies in Les Cedres, but the entrance is in St. Lazare, so no one is willing to commit to improving it," she said. "If something like this happened during the winter, it would be very difficult for most residents to use that road."
 
Samson said neither she or her husband noticed anything out of the ordinary on Thursday night when the train derailed.
 
"I guess we were far enough away that we didn't hear anything," she said. "It will be another few days before things are back to normal, I think."