BUCKSPORT, Maine — Bucksport firefighters were called to a remote section of railroad track to assist at a derailment on a section of tracks located in a wooded area along the Penobscot River.
Initial reports indicate that four Pan-Am Railways train cars left the tracks, two of them winding up in the nearby Penobscot River, a Bucksport Public Safety dispatcher confirmed.
No injuries were reported and the cars were not carrying hazardous materials, the dispatcher said, adding that none of the derailed cars were leaking.
Five miles and hour and they derail. Sad, pathetic. It is over for Railroads in Maine might as well just junk the rest and send the scrap metal to China.
So how many derailments for Pan-Am is that?
Pan Am has almost daily derailments due to the deplorable condition of the rail system which the own and “maintain”. It is really pathetic when the engine crews can’t go fast enough to keep the black flies out of the engine cab.
IF this country was smart with finances, it would fix the railroads and use them. Get some of the trucks of the road. But…………….
Down my way they are keeping the tracks up. We listen to them hauling coal to the piers when the wind is blowing just right. But of course I live in an area with a huge port that brings in a ton of intermodal traffic.
you still need trucks to get the loads to and from the rail cars.
So sad to see what has become of the Maine Central Railroad I knew as a kid. It started going to hell when Timothy Mellon bought it in 1983, if I remember the date correctly. I grew up hanging around the old Bangor Yard and engine house back in the 60’s. Those men back then are directly responsible for me becoming a locomotive engineer. Some days I don’t know whether to shoot them or thank them…lol. Truly sad I ended up out of state to live my profession, but here we run freight trains 60 MPH and on a slow day we roll out about 120 trains. It’s been a good life on the railroad. Thanks guys.
They say the railroad bridge in Bangor is stable, but that 100 plus year old column is amazing. And the rail bridge off main st., out towards Hampden, maybe it’s stable too but looks like one bad rain storm could wash that bulky ugly iron span down onto the street. just sayin.
Whats more amazing is, this could have been prevented if the company invested more in the tracks instead of the CEO pockets.
And even worse is they pumped the rail maintenance money into the Airline which was a flop.
It would be an interesting situation if car loads of families in vans were just “falling off ” interstate 95. DOT would be all over that. Are the lives of trains crews less valuable?