On January 16th at about 19:00 hrs. a westbound CSX container train derailed in the town of East Rochester, N.Y.. I first heard about it at 9pm that night, but I was home with the kids so I couldn't get out to shoot that night. The next morning after dropping the baby off at daycare I headed to the scene to see what was going on.
The first thing I saw was the trailing unit still coupled to the first platform of the train. Next I noticed the shredded and twisted containers tossed about the scene. Some of the containers look to have been empty and a few were carrying large rolls of paper. After leaving the north side of the tracks on Despatch drive, named after the N.Y.C. R.R.'s car shops that were located here, I went to the south side of the tracks to get a better view.
On the south side I got a close up look of the trucks and wheels stacked here and there, most of them were packed with dirt, mud and evergreen tree branches that were torn from trees along the right of way. Also surprising to me was the sight of a double stack car actually torn into 2 or 3 pieces! I tried to count how many platforms were on the ground but they were so mangled and piled up that it was impossible.
I have been to a few wrecks in my few years but this one by far was the most impressive and terrible. I hope events like this remain few and far between.