Derailed train snarls traffic in city

NASHUA – Lisa Fitzgerald was heading west on Bridge Street on Tuesday morning when, as bad luck would have it, she got stuck waiting for the train to cross near the Nashua Farmers’ Exchange.

“I was counting the bloody cars,” said Fitzgerald, who lives in Hudson. “I was up to 78, and then I started hearing this gravelly, crunchy noise. I said, ‘What the heck?’ ”

With her windows rolled up, she felt “rumbles and thuds,” heard “screeching” and saw a train car “kicking up gravel.” Then she saw another car lean left, then right, then left again, followed by yet another car, twisting.

Three of them, heading north, derailed before Fitzgerald’s eyes just before 11 a.m. By the time the dust cleared, a total of seven cars near the back end of an 87-car train had gone off Pan Am tracks: three completely toppled, and four stayed upright. Some 300 tons of coal was spilled in the derailment, a very rare occurrence in Nashua.

The incident shut down a section of Bridge Street for most of Tuesday and was expected to cause “a mess” during the evening commute, said Deputy Fire Chief Steve Galipeau.

According to WMUR Channel 9, Nashua’s Superintendent of Streets Roy Sorenson expected only the eastbound lane to be open by morning. Check nashuatelegraph.com for updates on the road closure.

There were no injuries and no hazardous materials aboard.

David Fink, president of Pan Am, said preliminary investigation shows that one of the “truck sides” – or wheel assemblies, which contain axles, springs, and other equipment for suspension – had fallen off one of the cars. That caused a chain reaction among several subsequent cars.

Most of the train – an estimated 74 cars – continued on to the Merrimack Station power plant in Bow without a problem.

Asked whether he thought there was a problem with the tracks, Fink said, “We’re looking at everything, but we don’t think so” because of the evidence with the assembly.

Fink said an investigation into the cause of the derailment would likely go on for about a month because of metal that needs to be tested and other factors.

Crews were expected to realign the four upright cars and move them late Tuesday afternoon. They could be seen removing the wheels of the three toppled cars on Tuesday afternoon. Those, Fink said, were to be set aside while the track is repaired.

Fink said he expected trains to be back up and running today.

The derailment was a magnet for spectators during the late morning and afternoon, as dozens and dozens of people filtered onto a nearby field to take pictures with their cell phones and pocket cameras. Helicopters swooped overhead.

The train, of course, also grabbed the attention of folks who live and work in the area.

“I watch this thing going by all the time,” said Cindy Nye, who works near the tracks at New Hampshire Furniture Direct.

“All of a sudden, it goes like this,” she said waving her arms. “It was wobbling. … I said, ‘It looks like it’s going over.’ ”

When she ran outside, Nye said, “it was coming down.”

Frank Storey was walking in the area when he said he heard “a big pop, like thunder,” he said. “It was pretty catastrophic.”

Gary Knott, a neighbor in the area, said he heard a “smash, screech, bang, boom,” but had “no clue” that the cause was a train derailment.

“I’ve seen a lot of trains, but not on their sides,” Knott said.

“This has never happened here before,” agreed fellow neighbor Caroline Lally, who lives on the corner of D Street and East Hollis. “Luckily no one was on the other side.”

It will take “a couple of days” to clean up the coal, Fink said, which is still useable.

PSNH Spokesman Martin Murray said the utility regularly maintains enough coal at the Merrimack Station power plant to operate for at least a month.

The plant provides about 40 percent of the 8 million megawatt-hours of electricity that PSNH sells each year. It burns around 1 million tons of coal annually, about 60 percent mined in the United States and 40 percent from Venezuela.

The trains carrying coal to Merrimack Station make up a significant portion of the state’s freight rail traffic. It takes more than 100 trains similar to the one that derailed Tuesday to provide the power plant with its coal each year, although not all of those run through Nashua.

Karen Lovett can be reached at 594-6402 or klovett@nashuatelegraph.com.