A shipping container loses its load as it slides off South Side derailment site
Derailment
Norfolk Southern attempts to pull a container down from the tracks at the site of a massive derailment on the South Side of Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh and railroad officials said that cleaning up the derailed train cars tossed like matchsticks along a hillside on the city’s South Side would be difficult.
And they weren’t kidding.
An attempt to slide a pair of shipping containers down the hillside Monday didn’t work as planned. The containers came to an abrupt stop. The doors of the top container flew open, and a waterfall of what looked like cardboard boxes poured out, smashing into the light rail tracks below.
Jonathan Glass, a spokesman for Norfolk Southern, said the boxes in the video were full of mouthwash. Cat food and dishwashing detergent have also spilled during cleanup, Glass said. The falling boxes of mouthwash did not damage the T tracks, Glass said. However, Port Authority hasn’t yet inspected the damage at the scene.
Andrew Russell, the Trib photographer who captured the video, tweeted it Monday . By mid-day Tuesday, the video had already racked up nearly 20,000 views.
Crews continued Tuesday to clean up Sunday’s derailment.
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Aaron Aupperlee is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Aaron at 412-336-8448, aaupperlee@tribweb.com or via Twitter @tinynotebook.
