Tanker train derails in Orrington

ORRINGTON – A train derailment Wednesday night near Route 15 led to the evacuation of Orrington residents along a 1.5 mile stretch of road.

Rescue crews, uncertain if the train was carrying hazardous materials, went door to door evacuating residents from the railroad crossing at Route 15 to the Ferry Road and Center Drive intersection.

The train, owned by Springfield Terminal, was traveling toward Bucksport shortly after 7 p.m. when something went wrong with a switching device, according to information the train’s conductor gave Orrington Volunteer Fire Chief Michael Spencer. Officials were unsure of the train’s final destination or where it had departed from.

Three tankers, carrying a clay and water mixture, and two hopper cars transporting drier clay overturned near the tracks crossing at Route 15 past Snow’s Corner.

No one was injured, but some residents who were evacuated were confused as to where to wait and to get information. Many locals said they feared the train had been transporting chlorine.

“All they told us is a train derailed, and didn’t say what, if anything leaked,” Wayne Cartier of Honders Way in Orrington said. “They just said get out.”

The Cartiers, who live on the east side of the railroad tracks, said they could see the locomotive’s headlight shining brightly about 500 yards from their driveway.

“The train was stopped, but we didn’t hear anything,” Cartier said. The couple was told by Brewer police to leave behind their animals, including horses, goats, dogs and cats.

They stopped at the East Orrington Congregational Church where 15 to 20 of the evacuated residents gathered to wait.

The first firefighter on the scene saw a “cloud coming up out of one of the cars,” Spencer said. No one aboard the train could be found at the scene, so rescue officials called in a hazardous materials unit to investigate.

Officials later learned the conductor and one other person aboard the train had left the scene to report the derailment, according to the fire chief.

“In hindsight, if somebody had just been standing at the scene, this all would have been rectified quicker,” Spencer said.

The engineer and conductor later returned. After some interrogation as to their identity, they were allowed to pass the roadblock at Snow’s Corner.

Between 30 and 40 rescue personnel from Orrington, Brewer, Holden, the Maine State Police and the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department turned the scene over to railroad officials at about 9:30 p.m. Residents were allowed to return to their homes. Roadblocks at Snow’s Corner and Center Drive were removed.

The undamaged cars were removed from the tracks, but it will take a few days to clean up the mess, Spencer said.

In his 12 years with the fire department, the chief said he couldn’t recall a derailment in town, especially of this magnitude.

“I’m very pleased with [the rescue effort],” Spencer said. “The cooperation I had with the other public agencies was phenomenal.”