Railroad admits flaws in Yorkville derailment cleanup

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Tipped over rail cars and damaged track are all that remain in the spot of a derailment on the Illinois Rail Net line just west of Poplar Drive in the River's Edge subdivision in Yorkville on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. | Steven Buyansky~Sun-Times Media

Updated: March 4, 2012 8:11AM

YORKVILLE – Officials for Illinois Railway admitted Thursday evening they mismanaged the cleanup of a derailment here last week.

Darcy Brede, chief operating officer for OmniTrax, parent company of Illinois Railway, told members of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee that the railroad should have done a better job watching over the company it hired to clean up the derailment.

“The guys we brought in are not used to being in a town,” ” Brede said. “We weren’t on top of them. I think we can all agree we didn’t manage that well. We’ve already had that discussion internally.

“Every community we go through we care about. We handled this one poorly.”

About 10 cars derailed last week on the lone Illinois Railway track that runs through Yorkville. It took place near the River’s Edge subdivision, and in fact cut off some residents there from outside access where the track crosses Poplar Street.

While the derailment itself did not cut off the Poplar Street crossing, the cleanup did. At one point, the company handling the cleanup dumped a pile of gravel at the crossing, narrowing where vehicle could go so much that a school bus could not get through, and another car actually got stuck in the gravel pile.

City officials and residents told railroad officials they question the safety of the track through town because there have been, in effect, three derailments in the past three years.

Alderman Larry Kot, 2nd Ward, said he is “losing confidence that this is a safe operation.”He said he is particularly worried about a train coming through downtown.

“Three derailments in three years,” said one man. “Something is wrong with this picture.”

Brede said the previous derailments were caused by track problems. The latest derailment remains under investigation.

Both Brede and Tom Rush, Illinois Railway regional manager, said they think the number of track inspections the railroad does are enough, but some things just don’t show up in an inspection. The railroad does eyeball inspections at least twice a week, and X-ray inspections of the rails twice a year.

Alderman Carlo Colosimo, 1st Ward, Public Safety Committee chairman, said he was most concerned the railroad failed to notify anyone at the city or the police department. While he agreed they were not required to notify anyone by law, it would have “neighborly” to do so.

“I found out through Facebook, when people started posting photos,” he said.

Rush said he and two other managers were on the site of the derailment, and admitted when they saw the cars were not directly on a crossing and public safety did not seem threatened, they called no one.

“Three managers and no one asked the question, ‘Has local law enforcement been called?’””he said. “We did some very poor assuming.”

Mayor Gary Golinski said he could not “stress enough the importance of communication” in the future.

“The sooner we know, the sooner we can inform residents,” ” Golinski said.

Brede and Rush said they agreed “100 percent.

“That’s a promise,” Rush said.