Home»MARYLAND FIRE DEPT. INCIDENTS»HOWARD Co. Fire Dept.»Fatal Train Derailment-Ellicott City 8-21-12

Shortly after midnight on August 21, 2012 an eastbound train, carrying 80 cars loaded with coal traveling from Grafton, WV to Baltimore, derailed on the CSX main line in Ellicott City just above Main Street at the Baltimore-Howard County Line. Twenty one cars derailed behind the two locomotives pulling it after it crossed the bridge over Main Street and the Patapsco River.
Howard County Fire and Rescue began receiving frantic phone calls about the derailment and a full assignment was dispatched along with their Special Rescue Operations Team from Station 10(Rivers Park). Baltimore County’s ATR Team 17(Texas) was also dispatched and companies were sent to both the Howard County and Baltimore County sides of the incident.
When units arrived they also found six coal cars that had fallen 15’ below the tracks onto a parking lot with several parked automobiles crushed and buried under tons of coal. It was feared that occupants may have been trapped inside of the automobiles. Crews from the Special Rescue Team broke the car windows out and inserted small video cameras to search the inside of those vehicles. No victims were found in any of those vehicles.
When firefighters put ladders up to the bridge overpass to access the derailed cars they discovered two 19 year old girls deceased. They were sitting on the side of the bridge as the train came by and buried alive beneath the coal when the coal cars tipped over. The victims were identified as Elizabeth Nass and Rose Mayr, both 2010 graduates of Mount Hebron High School in Ellicott City.
It is not known what caused the derailment although the train crew reported that the emergency brakes engaged automatically as a result of a break in the pressurized air brake line somewhere along the train. The National Transportation Safety Board, CSX and other agencies are currently investigating the accident. The results may not be known for 6 months or more.
Traffic was shut down on Frederick Road, the major thoroughfare through the area, for several days as heavy equipment cleaned up the spilled coal and removed the damaged rail cars and automobiles from the tracks and roadways. Rail traffic was also halted as crews replaced the damaged tracks and roadbed.
Ellicott City is an historic business and tourist area. A lot of the businesses had to shut down for several days during the emergency due to the limited access to the area and the emergency equipment moving through the immediate area. The roadway reopened on the evening of the 24th and the damaged railroad tracks were replaced and CSX was running test trains on them the same night.
CSX estimated the initial damages at $2.2 million which included the environmental remediation. There was minimal damage to the environment as only a small amount of coal entered the Patapsco River and no other hazardous materials were aboard the train at the time of the derailment.