Yesterday evening a CSX Train carrying mainly compacted garbage derailed between the Spuyten Duyvil and Marble Hill Metro-North Stations. Today Metro-North Hudson Line service is a total mess. There main alternative is telling people to drive to stations on the Harlem Line. There is Limited Service (hourly during middays in each zone, half-hourly during rush hour) between Yonkers and Poughkeepsie with buses running from Yonkers to 242 Street-Van Courtlandt Park and passengers told to take the subway from there. They released two schedules today: This Morning-Afternoon and This Evening. Amtrak’s Empire Service is running fine since the derailment happened along the Harlem River just after trains switch off and over the Spuyten Dyvil Bridge. Ideally Metro-North should be able to operate some limited diesel service down the Hudson Line into Penn Station. I know there is excess track capacity along the Empire Connection and one would think that in this emergency situation they could run an hourly train into Penn Station. Anyway, that didn’t happen, how stupid!
Today I got fairly close to the derailment twice, the Broadway Bridge was the best I could do and everything was happening off in the distance. These photos are from around 11:00am, notice the crane lifting the cars back onto the tracks:
I then continued biking up to 242 Street and the bus bridge wasn’t too impressive (not like the previous Metro-North derailment I had to deal with back in May), I did like their use of a Service Change Poster lying around from the 1 train suspension last weekend, some buses said Subway Shuttle instead of MNR Service:
Living relatively close I borrowed by brother’s Unlimited and returned at about 6:30. I saw a crane train going through the Marble Hill Station as I arrived on an Uptown 1 train but couldn’t get off the subway quickly enough for a photo. They had clearly gotten the cars upright again and I could see an army of people in their orange safety vests working on the railroad (unlike earlier when I didn’t see anyone off in the distance because the crane was present). There were also a bunch of Metro-North railrunners parked off to the side. Since I took these photos looking west at sunset none came out too well (you can see the sea of Orange dots for employees):
Finally the reason I couldn’t wander down to the platform at Marble Hill:
Two cops in a squad car and crime scene tape block the only entrance to the platform.
This weekend isn’t any better, hourly electric service is operating from Yonkers to Croton-Harmon, diesel service hourly from Yonkers stopping at Tarrytown and Ossining and all stops to Poughkeepsie. If you need to get to Manhattan from Poughkeepsie or Croton-Harmon there is still plenty of low-bucket Amtrak availability for $25 and $18 respectively one-way. You think Amtrak and Metro-North could cooperate more and let Metro-North enter Penn Station for the weekend!
One reply on “The CSX Garbage Train Derailment at Spuyten Dyvil: Photos from the Broadway Bridge”
It is impossible for Metro North to run into Penn. MNR train crews are not qualified on the Empire or Penn Station. Just like Amtrak train crews are not qualified south of Spuyten Duyvil to GCT. For it to work, an Amtrak crew would have to relieve a MNR crew at Riverdale and take them south. I’m sure neither is willing to use the manpower or money to make that happen for a few days.