The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Train derailment blocks downtown crossings

Walnut Street to be closed indefinitely

Workers attach a hook in an attempt to move an empty train car of a CSX train that derailed Wednesday, March 3, 2010, near the 500 block of Walnut Street in Hamilton.

Staff photo by Greg Lynch Workers attach a hook in an attempt to move an empty train car of a CSX train that derailed Wednesday, March 3, 2010, near the 500 block of Walnut Street in Hamilton.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Photos: Train derails in Hamilton

Road closing for railroad repairs
New 8 min. ago
Caesar Creek Lake boater falls overboard, medics attempting rescue
Updated 12 min. ago
Beach Waterpark sued by Ohio Attorney General's Office for failure to deliver
Updated 24 min. ago
Worker falls 20 feet from utility pole
11:14 a.m.
Out-of-state shoppers arrested in clothing theft
10:14 a.m.
> More headlines

By Lauren Pack, Staff Writer Updated 1:57 AM Thursday, March 4, 2010

HAMILTON — Crossings downtown were closed most of Wednesday, March 3, after several cars on a southbound CSX train derailed at Walnut Street.

The 120-car train pulled by three engines blocked crossings from 8:30 a.m. to about 3 p.m. The train spanned 6,500 feet, extending from the Hanover Street crossing and over the Great Miami River to the D Street overpass on the city’s West Side.The Walnut Street crossing will remain closed indefinitely, police said.

The cars that derailed were not carrying hazardous material and may have been empty, said Bob Sullivan, spokesman for CSX Railroad. There were no injuries, and the cause of the incident remains under investigation, he said.

However, Hamilton Deputy Fire Chief Curt Neu said disaster was averted because the third car back from the derailed portion of the train was carrying ethyl alcohol, which is highly flammable. He said six train cars were carrying Haz-Mat substances, according to rail officials.

Dispatchers received a call at 8:25 a.m. that four cars went off the tracks in the 500 block of Walnut, police said.

Hamilton Municipal Court Corrections Officers Dave Mick and Joel Mast said they had just left the county jail and were waiting at the Hanover Street crossing when one of the cars on the southbound train started teetering.

“It was like in slow motion ... one started teetering, then flipped around in a 45-degree angle like it was trying to pass the car in front. Then it just fell over,” Mick said.

That set off a chain reaction with four cars bunching up and jumping the tracks, he said.

For Mick and Mast, who called dispatchers, it meant a “long way around” for prisoner transports and “to get to the doughnut shop,” Mick said.

Wednesday’s incident is the city’s third derailment in the past 2½ years. On Dec. 3, 2009, a U.S. Rail locomotive and boxcar, working under contract with SMART Papers, went off the tracks near Gordon Avenue. In July 2007, three cars on a CSX train overturned, dumping tons of soybean grain onto a grassy bank beside Ohio 4.

Share this article