Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 24, 1990 TAG: 9004240617
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/3 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CRAIGSVILLE, PA. LENGTH: Short
The explosion late Monday night came a full day after 29 cars of a 97-car Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad freight train plunged into a ravine along Buffalo Creek.
The popular fishing creek in this rural community about 45 miles northeast of Pittsburgh is a tributary of the Allegheny River, the source of drinking water for several Pittsburgh-area communities.
About 100,000 gallons of oil leaked from four cars and up to 10,000 gallons of sodium hydroxide, a caustic chemical used to clean drains, leaked from one car, said John Bell, the railroad's general manager. He said some of the oil and a small amount of the chemical spilled into the creek.
Booms were set up to skim globs of oil from the water surface.
Eight cars of the train carried crude oil, said Don Grafton, chief of the Worthington Volunteer Fire Department.
He said the oil burned off from five cars, two were burning this morning, and firefighters were watching an adjacent intact tanker containing more than 26,000 gallons of crude oil.
"What's really burning is sort of like the vapor of the crude oil burning," Grafton said. "It's creating a little bit of black smoke."
Firefighters and officials got away just in time when the two tankers burning this morning ruptured late Monday, Allegheny County Fire Marshal John Kauf said.
"As soon as we saw there was going to be a problem, we started pulling our people back," Grafton said.
by CNB