Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star: Spanberger urges federal investigation into train derailment

SCOTT SHENK, FREDERICKSBURG FREE LANCE-STAR

ust more than a month has passed since freight rail cars derailed in Fredericksburg, with two toppling into a sound wall that in turn fell onto garages at Cobblestone Apartments.

Since the incident, city officials and 7th District U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger have pressed CSX for information about the incident and rail infrastructure in the region.

Spanberger upped the ante by asking the Federal Railroad Administration to “conduct a thorough incident review and evaluation of regional rail infrastructure,” according to a Friday statement by the congresswoman’s office.

The letter urges FRA Administrator Amit Bose to follow city officials and Spanberger’s “calls for a more thorough investigation into last month’s derailment and request that (the FRA) conduct an incident review of the CSX freight train derailment, as well as an audit of rail operations in the city.”

She asks the FRA to work directly with Fredericksburg officials, who have “raised concerns regarding CSX’s operations and the need for an independent investigation — to understand the impact of this derailment and the historical context of rail challenges in the region.”

Fredericksburg Manager Tim Baroody thinks a federal review is needed.

“We are very pleased that Congresswoman Spanberger has urged this important review,” he said in an email. “While we appreciate CSX’s commitment to review the matter, an outside independent federal review is critical.”

In her letter, Spanberger also highlights the tanker storage area next to Mayfield, something residents and officials have highlighted for years as a safety and environmental concern because stored tankers often hold hazardous materials.

Spanberger recently met with city officials in Mayfield and the derailment site to talk about the incident and storage of tankers near the neighborhood.

The July 20 derailment involved five rail cars, which were improperly secured and rolled freely on the storage track toward the mainline. When the cars reached what is called a split-rail device, the safety mechanism worked as designed by sending them off the tracks in order to prevent the cars from reaching the mainline tracks.

Five cars derailed, with two toppling onto a sound wall between the tracks and Cobblestone Apartments. The sound wall fell onto several garages, causing significant damage. There were no injuries in the crash.

Two of the derailed cars held scrap metal, one carried soybeans, one was empty and another was loaded with lime. Another eight cars, which did not roll off with the others, held molten sulfur, a hazardous material that is a fire risk.

The tracks were in place long before Cobblestone apartments were built, but questions remain concerning how the sound wall and garages were allowed to be built so close to the tracks and why the derail device was in that location.

The device has since been moved to another spot.

Spanberger said in the statement that “the FRA should initiate an investigation into the derailment to guarantee that a similar incident does not occur again.”

Fredericksburg residents, she added, “deserve to feel safe in their homes. These longstanding concerns, coupled with last month’s derailment, require a holistic audit of the area to determine existing risks before another incident occurs and provide recommendations for necessary improvements to enhance the overall safety of railway operations in Fredericksburg.”