On Friday derailment recovery crews concentrated on clearing a rough route across Bull Run in Northfield to allow them to carry the Amtrak locomotive across the brook and out to Bull Run Road.
Crews have been cleaning up the site in the aftermath of a derailment of the Vermonter, an Amtrak passenger train, on Monday that injured seven people all of whom have been released from the hospital.
Williston’s Environmental Products and Services, a spill response contractor, took out 410 cubic yards of contaminated soil – equivalent to about 45 dump truck loads – on Thursday, depositing it at a well-protected holding site near the locomotive. The soil will ultimately be incorporated by a New Hampshire into an asphalt paving aggregate.
The locomotive has been winched to a level area, allowing contractors to get at the area of the spillage. The intervention of a large tree reportedly prevented the locomotive from sliding all the way into the brook and fouling it with the leaking oil.
Exact assessment of the diesel fuel leakage’s extent still awaits a reorientation of the locomotive, DEC’s Ted Unkles, who said that up to 900 gallons may have been spilled.
The derailment contractors hope to use massive cranes to lift the body of the locomotive and suspend it as they carry it across the brook, then up to Bull Run Road. That could happen as early as tomorrow.
