The Philadelphia Chapter of the

National Railway Historical Society

Established in 1936

As my favorite Yankee (and that says a lot coming from a diehard Red Sox fan) Yogi Berra says "It's deja vu all over again". The CSX Lansdale Cluster has seen an increase in activity since the Conrail split, and the EPRY operations in Quakertown are growing at an even faster rate. This additional tonnage has combined with an aging infrastructure (FRA excepted track, meaning freight only limited to a maximum speed of 10 MPH) to create problems on the Bethlehem Branch and the Stony Creek Branch, resulting in almost monthly derailments.

In the early morning hours of Friday March 3 2006, CSX local B745, the night job that services the Doylestown and Warminster Branches out of Lansdale Yard, was shoving outbound cars from the Bethlehem Running Track onto the Bethlehem Industrial Track siding just north of Eighth Street when a rail on the BRT broke and the rails spread, putting at least three cars on the ground. Terra, who has handled previous derailments in Hatfield and Lansdale, was called in to right the cars using a couple of sidewinders.

Update: All five cars spotted at the site at 17:00 on Friday had derailed. Tank car UTLX 950524 and covered hopper CHVX 896971 had already been rerailed by that time. Also, the broken rail that was observed happened earlier in the day during the rerailing process, so the cause of the derailment was rail spread.

All pictures March 3 2006 Copyright © 2006 John P. Almeida

Photographs for personal use only. All rights reserved by original owner of image. Reproduction or redistribution in any form without express written permission is prohibited.