BUCKSPORT, Maine — After the second derailment in about as many months of a train going to or from the Verso mill, the papermaking plant is concerned.
The train that derailed early Sunday afternoon was carrying paper from Verso Paper Corp. when it went off the tracks at the intersection of Route 15, said Bill Cohen, a Verso spokesman.
One car overturned in the accident, and many more derailed, tearing up Route 15 as their metal wheels dug into the pavement. The stretch of road near the railroad intersection was closed to traffic until late Sunday evening.
Cohen said he couldn’t confirm how much paper was on the train, but said Verso was working with Pan Am Railways — which owns the tracks and operates the train — to assess how much product was damaged in the derailment.
The stretch of rail connects the mill to Bangor, where it connects with routes headed as far north as Madawaska and as far south as New Haven, Conn. Cohen said accidents such as Sunday’s derailment can leave the mill anxious about supply routes in and out of the sprawling Bucksport complex.
“There have been multiple derailments on the line between the mill and Bangor, and the railroad knows how important that line is,” he said Monday. “Obviously, any time we lose product or have problems getting supplies in and out — it doesn’t matter if it’s a rail problem or a truck or anything else — it’s a concern to us.”
The Federal Railroad Administration had sent an inspector to the site, said FRA spokesman Rob Kulat, but because the accident caused less than $1 million in damage and no one was hurt, the derailment did not trigger an FRA investigation into the accident.
Kulat said Pan Am Railways would likely conduct its own investigation into the derailment.
“There are a thousand reasons that derailments happen,” he said Monday. “The railroads always do their own internal analysis, just as good business practice.”
A representative from Pan Am Railways did not return a call for comment Monday.
On May 25, a Pan Am Railways train derailed near the Bucksport-Orrington town line, spilling 4,000 to 6,000 pounds of papermaking chemicals into the Penobscot River.
From January 2002 to April 2012, there have been 63 train derailments in Maine, according to the FRA’s Office of Safety Analysis. On Pan Am Railways lines, there were 27 in the same period.
Follow Mario Moretto on Twitter at @riocarmine.
Talk about scams… PanAm, purchases for pennies on the dollar,
tracks built by the taxpayer dollars and maintained in passenger rail
grade. Then PanAm lays off maintenance crews while the tracks degrade to impassable. Now PanAm comes back to the trough
for money to rebuild a rail system it allowed to fail so as to maximize their profit. These multi-million dollar thieves belong behind bars!!!!!
I said it once and I’ll say it again….There have been at least two more derailments on this line…above and beyond those mentioned in the article, in the last 12 months. I have twice called District 1 dispatch in Bilerica to report “wheels on the ground”, and, after a while they were able to stop the trains. The press doesn’t hear about those because they happen in more remote locations along the line. Go ahead BDN,…give them a call and Pan Am will deny it. Oh,..btw,..what was the final environmental report from the tank cars in the river???
There are no tax dollars spent on this line? You are referring to the lines that AMTRAK runs on.
You are correct! Tax dollars may be received from the state, but none are actually spent. If LePage needs money, audit the railroad for projects done by them and paid for by the state.