Published: September 06, 2008 11:28 pm      

Faulty tie plate blamed for downtown Johnstown train derailment

The shift of a small piece of metal caused a June train derailment in downtown Johnstown, railroad administrators say.

A CSX Corp. investigation found that the problem with a “tie plate” led to four freight cars leaving the track at a busy Bedford Street crossing.

The company will continue to look closely at that section of track to ensure that the issue does not arise again, CSX spokesman Gary Sease said.

“Since the derailment on June 19, we have not seen any evidence of that happening,” Sease said.

No one was hurt in the incident. But one railcar struck Budget Transmission at 340 Bedford St., and another stopped just short of the business.

An employee’s truck parked near the tracks was destroyed.

At the time, a witness said he saw the front wheels of one railcar “hopping, and they popped off the track.”

Sease said train rails must be 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches apart. Tie plates connect wooden cross ties to the rails.

In the June incident, the shifting tie plate “allowed the track to move out of alignment, and that resulted in the derailment,” Sease said.

The faulty tie plate has been replaced. Sease added that the track in question is inspected three times each week, as it was prior to the incident.

“We do maintain that track very well, and we’ve actually done some extensive maintenance and replacement work on that track,” he said.

While those preventative measures will continue, CSX apparently will not have to submit a report on the accident to government regulators.

The National Transportation Safety Board gets involved only in catastrophic rail accidents.

And the Johnstown derailment did not meet the criteria necessary to trigger a Federal Railroad Administration investigation, a spokesman said.

Those criteria include accidents leading to fatalities, track or equipment damage exceeding $1 million, extensive property damage or the release of hazardous materials.

When it comes to relatively minor accidents, rail companies often must submit a one-page report to the railroad administration. But CSX determined that the Johnstown derailment did not warrant such a report.

That’s not a big concern for Ed Fabo, who owns Budget Transmission. As a contractor fixed the corner of his building last week, Fabo said CSX has been cooperative.

CSX administrators have pledged to reimburse him for structural repairs and for any lost business after the wreck, since one garage bay has been unusable since then, Fabo said.

Damage to the building has been estimated at $15,000 to $20,000, he said.

And the railroad already has compensated the Budget Transmission employee whose Ford Ranger was crushed.

“They paid for that almost immediately,” Fabo said.

“They were really good about that.”