Cataraqui Spur Derailment - May 5, 2023

THE DERAILMENT

CN No 518 is the Monday-Wednesday-Friday, Belleville-Kingston turn now operating nocturnally, that switches KIMCO and the lakefront Invista (formerly DuPont) nylon plant. Though normally operating at night, today on May 5, 2023 the train was on the move when it derailed in daylight, just north of Bath Road at 1035. Though a steady progression of power has switched the Cataraqui Spur over the years, on this day it was a GP40-2LW and a former GMTX lease unit powering the train. The head-end is shown stopped behind Frontenac Mall, west of Armstrong Road:

The 17-car consist of the train is listed below. Though local news media reported five of 12 cars derailed, they were not counting the first five cars sitting west of Armstrong Road, which runs north-south just past the last car shown below at mile 1.26 of the Cataraqui Spur. Kingston Police are directing traffic at the crossing there when I took this photo at 1128.

• 9449 (cn.ca scheme) 
• 4910 (ex-GMTX)
• CMBX 101192 bathtub 
• ?CMBX xxx357 bathtub
• CMBX 101161 bathtub
• gondola
• IHLX 402113 bathtub

The power and first five cars are shown pulled clear to the west of the Armstrong Road crossing. The first ten cars contained KIMCO scrap. The last seven were Invista cars.

===CONSIST BROKEN FOR ARMSTRONG ROAD CROSSING===

• WC gondola
• WC gondola
• DJJX black gondola
• black gondola
• DJJX 804921 black gondola
• MGRX 50176 covered hopper
• MGRX 50077 covered hopper
• TILX 526037 new covered hopper derailed on trestle
• MGRX 50239 covered hopper on its side in swamp
• TILX 294325 tank car on its side in swamp
• TILX 294344 tank car on its side north side of track
• TILX 294156 tank car on its side north side of track
• TILX 294153 tank car on its side north side of track

More cars of KIMCO scrap just east of the Armstrong Road crossing. The trestle and derailed cars are just around the curve to right, as shown in following photos. (For such a frequent derailment location, one would think the sightlines would be a little better! Always a challenge to follow and photograph mishaps here, though hipwaders, a canoe or a drone, banned later in the evening by Kingston Police!, would help)

THE CALL I GOT

It was a busy day. A trip to the Dollar Tree (to which I combined my semi-annual sojourn to The Beer Store to return empties, which, tangentially was not open quite yet, so I walked up and down the mini-mall sidewalk toting two boxes and two bags of empty cans, perhaps to the amusement of the breakfast crowd at Gina's Grill!) got me home and preparing to host a visit by our niece to see our newest granddaughter. Fellow Associated Railroaders of Kingston member Paul Hunter phoned arond 1100 to mention the mishap. His daughter Shelby, who lives in the area, was out for a serendipitous stroll when she came across the derailment and snapped the following photos from Bath Road. I was off and driving!

THE SCENE

Not wanting to be embroiled in security issues, hazmat response nor traffic chaos, I accessed the largely inaccessible site by a circuitous route along Bath Road, north on Tanner Drive, through the Arbour Ridge subdivision to Centennial Drive, which I crossed before parking in one of the Armstrong subdivision apartment parking lots and walking down Armstrong Road. I could cross the crossing, then walk behind a mini-mall to get alongside the Little Cataraqui Creek that flows under the trestle, with Moses-like views throught the bullrushes! 

MGRX 50237's westernmost truck hangs on the trestle (above) while the car and the trailing tank cars gave in to gravity:

Where the rail starts to give way:

Sidewalk superintendents and professional engineers alike can theorize what led to the outcome shown below. Clearly, the ties, cross-members, stringers and/or pilings have given way. Note that the lone truck and the easternmost truck of the covered hopper car shown were derailed on either side of the track!

A last long shot before departing to my sausage-centred station at home for the lunchtime grilling:

The power and first five cars were stopped and cut off the rest of the train, as shown at top of post. More scrap gons preceded the Invista cars teetering on the trestle at Mi. 1.4 of the Cataraqui Spur. In fact, I could see some had teetered right off, taking the trestle with them. A couple of final tank cars were derailed on their sides but on terra firma north of the spur.

THE DETAILS

This drone photo posted to social media by SkEyeStream showing the scene:

Being a now-nocturnal run, it was unusual for CN No 519 to be operating in daylight, symboled for Belleville day yard assignmnt 518. Paul had mentioned a light power move eastward around 0930. Perhaps the crew had hog-lawed and left their train at Queens. Regardless, they were in motion at 1035 when the mishap happened. But were they heading north or south? Initial details were sparse, with at least one CN employee mentioning a northward movement.

I couldn't imagine the complete train crossing the trestle northward with the last few cars then derailing. So heading north seemed incomprehensible. However, heading south would mean loaded cars and therefore the real possibility of lading spillage. Also, a southward movement would mean a crew member riding the first car as it derailed. A mechanical problem like an axle could certainly happen in either direction. But I was favouring southward.

The Invista plant handles inbound hexamethylene diamine in tank cars, and adipic acid (salt) in covered hoppers. The turn often switches KIMCO, runs around its train at Queens then takes the south track to the Cataraqui Spur, KIMCO cars and all, then backs southward to Invista before switching the plant and heading west power-first for Belleville yard.

The subsequent unloading of lading as mentioned below makes it conclusively a southward movement that derailed. Or as my son succintly put it, why would all those vacuum trucks be parked on Bath Road for an empty train?

Here's the Rail Daily Notification Report from the Transportation Safety Board's Rail Occurrence Database System: 

"Summary: CN assignment L51831-05 was shoving southward at approximately 7 MPH when 6 cars derailed at a bridge at mile 1.4 Cataraqui Spur, mile 178 Kingston Sub. Derailed (all loads) are hopper cars of Environmentally Hazardous Substance, Solid, N.O.S. - UN3077 (Adipic Acid), TILX 526037 (upright on bridge, MGRX 50077 (in the water), tank cars of Hexamethylenediamine, Solid - UN2280, TILX 294344 (in the water) and TILX 294153, TILX 294156, TILX 294325 (on their sides). Emergency services and DG teams responded. No reported injuries. At the time of derailment there were no reported leaks."

THE RUMOURS

Wild, wondrous and what the F-unit? Social media disinformation and armchair experts casting aspersions on Invista, CN, the city, King Charles III, the military-industrial complex and everything else under the sun. Suspicious. Terroristic. Bad luck. Who knows and who can tell? The city spokesman spoke very generally. Kingston Fire and Rescue responded but could do little.

THE CLEAN-UP

A rapid but possibly lengthy emergency response was in the offing. By the late afternoon, the closed section of Bath Road between Armstrong Road and Queen Mary Road resembled a hazmat convention trade show. Three cranes, several vacuum trucks, CN and clean-up contractor trucks and police vehicles as far as the eye could see. Heavy equipment was deployed by evening, with truckloads of limestone rock being backed north of Bath Road, dumped and spread around the Cataraqui Spur track for rerailing efforts. CN reported 5,000 tons of locally-sourced 'shot rock' and 250 tons of locally-sourced ballast were used. Work continued under portable lights into the night. Paul's daughter Shelby kindly provided the following photo:

The next day, Saturday the 6th we visited the site from afar. Heavy equipment aplenty, two tankcars rerailed and moved south of Bath Road. Shortly thereafter, Paul noted CN No 518's power arriving around 1030 and removing the five remaining gondolas and three covered hoppers from east of the Armstrong Road crossing, heading west at 1315 - only after the easternmost TILX 526037 covered hopper was rerailed upon departure.

Two side-boom bulldozers north of Bath Road, with only one tank car still to be hauled out (above). Cranes not in use yet, still on the Bath Road bridge over the creek. Multiple dumptrucks with stone:

A 'white-hat' at the last remaining tank car (above) and just visible at left (below) with GR EnviroRail excavator and many workers gathered around: Volvo crane with sling and two side-boom bulldozers visible at right:

Kingston Transit operated a Shuttle Bus from east of the spur (Queen Mary Road, up to Princess Street, west to Taylor-Kidd Boulevard and south on Centennial Boulevard) to west of the spur on Bath Road.

On Sunday, Paul noted that piles were being driven for an embankment leading to the remaining section of trestle. Covered hopper MGRX 50239 was unloaded into four large blue 'vessels' that were transferred to the Invista property. The car will be cut up on-site, as giant steel-jawed excavators await the shredding. The four black TILX tanks cars are also at Invista to be unloaded, and then to meet a similar fate.

On Tuesday, I could see a completed connection to the trestle, with two large boom trucks on-track at the west end of the trestle. Piles of bridge timbers were stacked along Armstrong Road. All CN vehicles were now along Armstrong Road and no longer parked on Bath Road, which was open in both directions. It appeared that the derailed covered hopper was being scrapped.

The four rerailed tank cars were at the unloading tracks inside the Invista plant property:

On Tuesday night, CN No 519 returned to the Cataraqui Spur after 108 hours of recovery!

Two photos taken internally at Invista and shared with The Kingstonist, showing the mud-covered two northernmost tank cars, TILX 294325 and 294344: The cars were spotted on the easternmost tank car unloading track, within the fenced compound.

THE PAST

Previous Cataraqui Spur derailments I've profiled: on the trestle on October 13, 1995; at Bath Road level crossing March 25, 2020; three weeks earlier on March 4, 2020 and also mentions December 5, 2004; on plant trackage on November 23, 2022 (scroll a bit), and six years prior to that on November 23, 2016 (scroll a bit),

After the October 13, 1995 derailment, at which cars remained upright though derailed, CN sent pile driver-equipped crane CN 50472 the following August to drive a series of new piles into the trestle.

Interestingly, also after a call from Paul, I photographed two CN hi-rail trucks working on the exact location of today's derailment back on November 14, 2021:

THE FUTURE FOR INVISTA

Since this incident this morning, I've read several accounts how other plants in other cities have changed direction facing events such as these, i.e. switching to truck transport. Though the feedstocks for the Invista plant came from nearby Maitland, ON during the DuPont era, they now come from as far afield as Texas. That's a long way to drive a heavy, hazardous lading with specially-lined trailers. There's a reason that railways have cornered the markets for goods no-one else wants to transport, in the process garnering much negative media attention when derailments occur.

With a purpose-built spur, originally extended south from CN's Kingston Subdivision to serve the new lakefront grain elevator in 1930, before being extended again to supply wartime nylon production at the new plant in 1942, why would Invista want to switch to a more difficult, more costly means of transport? It's unlikely they'll shift production elsewhere, so it's just a waiting game for trestle repair and temporary shipping arrangements. In this era of just-in-time delivery, certain parts of the plant's production are already being wound down in the interim.

Low joints, uneven ballast, aged ties and now the trestle are proving to be suboptimal to carry the regular service Invista demands. I would suggest new ballast, a major tie program and surfacing, maybe heavier rail installation, and a new trestle north of Bath Road be performed by CN. It's worth noting that the portion of the spur south of Front Road, the responsibility of Invista and various contractors it employs, has seen better maintenance and trestle replacement in recent years than the Cataraqui Spur has, despite CN's greater available maintenance-of-way resources and higher proportion of spur ownership!

What a difference four days, hundreds of workers, heavy equipment, portable lighting, and $$$ can make:

CBC's Dan Taekama phoned me for background information on the derailment for his report. I politely declined an on-camera interview, asking the question 'Why doesn't CN provide an on-air interview when they are owners of the line, the train that derailed and most definitely are accountable to the community they operate through?'

One of Dan's photos showing transfer of adipic acid from the derailed covered hopper car to large blue bladders, just north of Bath Road. Four of these blue bladders were next seen near adjacent to the staff parking lot at the Invista plant:

THE ENVIRONMENT

Dogged reporting by The Kingstonist has shown a revolving door of responsibility. At first, the provincial environment ministry, Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority (CRCA), CN, nor the city showed much interest. Later, the provincial Ministry of Environment pointed to Environmental and Climate Change Canada, their federal counterpart, as the agency in charge of ongoing follow-up of the incident. This includes remediating the rock dumped into the wetland to stabilize the spur. Environmental damage has already been done, if rock was dumped on wildlife and breeding grounds at the site. Hopefully as much wildlife as possible got as far away as possible as quickly as possible.

Initially, CN was seen as the responsible party and hired environmental consultants and clean-up contractors to remediate the site. The provincial environment ministry did say that CN had applied to the CRCA for the necessary permits for emergency work at the site.

In early-July, 2023 a hi-rail brushcutter was seen west of Centennial Drive, bushing back vegetation about 20 feet on either side of the ballast.

THE PETITION

On August 14, 2023 petition e-4499 to the Parliament of Canada was initiated by Janine Powell and had garnered 30 signatures, 25 from Ontario in two weeks:

Running extra...

This Breaking News, ripped-from-today's-headlines post was unplanned, but allowed me to share another local railway happening last night - the second test run of Set 3 of VIA's new Siemens trainsets, made from Ottawa to near Toronto! Youtube video link here of this fourth test run in total.

Cruising through Collins Bay at a cool 79 mph westward as VIA No 649 at 1836: