The cleanup of the site of a CSX crude oil train derailment in West Virginia is expected to continue through the weekend.
The derailment occurred on the former Chesapeake & Ohio mainline, which is also used by Amtrak’s Cardinal.
Amtrak has ceased operating the Chicago-New York Cardinal over its entire route through Feb. 25.
The Cardinal has been operating only between Chicago and Indianapolis with bus service offered between Indianapolis and Cincinnati
Train No. 51 did not depart from New York on Wednesday morning, although Amtrak did provide alternative transportation to those traveling as far west as Charlottesville, Va.
The same arrangement was expected to take place on Thursday and Sunday.
The derailment of the 109-car train on Monday near Mount Carbon, W.Va., sent 27 loaded crude oil tank cars off the tracks and resulted in a series of explosions that continued for more than 10 hours.
Railroad derailment specialty contractors have been dispatched to the scene and have been removing the burned out cars.
Nineteen of the derailed cars caught fire. CSX officials confirmed that all of the cars were model CPC 1232 cars.
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board’s Office of Railroad, Pipeline, and Hazardous Materials have been in contact with the Federal Railroad Administration and CSX. CSX and the FRA are providing NTSB investigators with detailed damage reports and photographs of the derailed tank cars.
The investigators will compare the data with tank-car design specifications and similar derailments, including ones that occurred in Casselton, N.D., in December 2013 and Lynchburg, Va., in April 2014.
After the derailment, some of the tank cars released an unknown amount of crude, some of which likely seeped into the Kanawha River, NTSB officials said. A one-half-mile evacuation zone was established around the derailment site.
“This accident is another reminder of the need to improve the safety of transporting hazardous materials by rail,” said NTSB Acting Chairman Christopher Hart. “That is why this issue is included on our Most Wanted List. If we identify any new safety concerns as a result of this derailment, the board will act expeditiously to issue new safety recommendations.”
The train was traveling from North Dakota to Yorktown, Va. The cause of the derailment remains unknown.
An estimated 1,000 residents were forced out of their homes but had returned by late Tuesday.
Multiple agencies worked to restore power ahead of brutally cold record-breaking temperatures.
“Our primary mission has been to utilize the resources available to take care of restoring utility services to the affected communities efficiently,” West Virginia Homeland Security Director Jimmy Gianato said.
Officials at the scene were continuing to deploy environmental protective monitoring measures on land, air and in the nearby Kanawha River as well as a creek near the tracks, the U.S. Coast Guard reported.
A unified command center, operated by a collaboration of local, state and federal agencies was established on Wednesday.
“The top priorities for response personnel remain the safety of the community and responders, and mitigating the impact to the environment,” said Coast Guard Captain Lee Boone, Federal on Scene Coordinator for the West Virginia derailment.
Workers have established several access roads into the derailment site and are removing equipment where possible.
Once all fires have been extinguished, crews will transfer oil from the damaged cars to other tanks for removal from the site.