FONDA – A section of Route 5 is scheduled to reopen Tuesday after being closed for more than two months following a train crash.
Jim Piccola, a New York State Department of Transportation spokesman, said repairs were scheduled to start Friday. The contractor intends to have the section of Route 5 opened for traffic between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Tuesday, he said.
Authorities closed a 12-mile stretch of Route 5 from Mohawk to Palatine after the June 27 derailment of two CSX freight trains. The railroad has since reopened.
The repairs being made to Route 5 will only be temporary, Piccola said, but good enough to allow traffic to resume.
Piccola said after those repairs, CSX will have its contractors begin making permanent repairs to the road. The repairs are expected to be completed by the end of the season, he said.
“It may be sooner; it depends [on] how quickly the contractor gets it done,” Piccola said.
Piccola said the state gave road work plans to CSX. He said the plans call “for total reconstruction of that section of the highway.”
The shoulder of the road also would be repaired, he said, including guide rails and striping.
Officials said two CSX freight trains hit each other just west of Fonda around 8 a.m. An engineer and a conductor on one of the trains received minor injuries, authorities said.
In June, CSX spokesman Robert Sullivan said one of the trains was traveling from Avon, Ind., to Selkirk with four locomotives and 126 freight cars. The other train was going from Selkirk to New Castle, Pa., with two locomotives and 83 freight cars.
Sullivan said four locomotives and 45 freight cars derailed in the accident.
Crews spent weeks removing the freight and rail cars.
The exact cause of the crash is still under investigation.
