CSX said it did not know how the train was able to leave Stanley Yard in Lake Township, where the cars were being assembled, without its engineer. Radio communications between railroad officials indicated that the locomotive was at full throttle when it was stopped.
An employee at the Federal Railroad Administration said he'd never seen a runaway train. Rescue workers who frantically tried to protect residents in the line of the train agreed.
"We want to know why it got out, how it got out, and how we can prevent this from ever happening again. We are looking at everything from scratch," CSX spokesman Bob Sullivan said last night.
"I have a feeling that anyone that's a 30-year veteran has never seen anything like this before. It's something you don't see every day," said Chief Deputy Doug Wilcox of the Hancock County sheriff's department.
The train was scheduled to travel just one mile, but instead went 66 miles, at times within 50 feet of homes and businesses, while CSX tried to veer it off the tracks at two spots. Rescue workers feared the train would derail into houses as it headed through busy towns, or that cars would not hear it going through railroad crossings.
Initial reports indicated that an engineer was onboard and may have had a heart attack. But rescue workers quickly learned nobody was on the train.
With no one at the controls, there were no whistles to alert cars at road crossings and nobody to slow the train through Findlay, Bowling Green, and other communities. An air ambulance flew over the train in case of a derailment or collision.
Amazingly, nobody was hurt. The train stayed on the tracks even through the sharp turns, and police were able to keep traffic away. Crews hooked an engine to the rear of the train and applied the brakes as the train entered Kenton, slowing it as workers ran alongside, making several attempts to jump aboard. Finally, at 2:35 p.m., 31-year railroad veteran Jon Hosfeld leaped onto the engine and pulled the brake.
"Everything worked out fine," said a relieved John Harris, a superintendent with CSX police. "It is quite bizarre. It's unusual, and we hope it never happens again."
The train's speed, at 47 mph at one point, was within the general speed limit at that set of tracks, which is 50 mph. But police in the three counties the train sailed through said it was traveling way too fast for cities, curves in the tracks, and residential areas.
"How do you plan for something like this with all the safeguards that are supposed to be on those trains?" said Bill Day, director of the Hancock County Emergency Management Agency.
The train was stopped at the north end of Stanley Yard about 12:30 p.m., its engine running, about a half-mile from where it passed through a switch and took off down the main line toward Bowling Green. It was supposed to go only one mile to a neighboring yard operated by Norfolk Southern.
Of the 47 cars, 25 were empty. The other cars were loaded primarily with lumber and paper. Two cars contained molten-phenol, a hazardous material used to make dyes, paints, pharmaceuticals, and as a general disinfectant. The non-flammable material was kept at 160 degrees.
The train's two crew members were not aboard. A CSX spokesman said he didn't know where they were when the train ran away.
The train was equipped with a safety device that, if working properly, should have stopped the train within minutes after it took off because nobody was running it. CSX doesn't know why it didn't do that.
The train left the yard unattended, and officials quickly warned Wood County authorities.
At Dunbridge, south of Perrysburg, crews veered the train onto a side track used to let other trains pass, hoping the shift would throw the engine and the cars off the tracks.
But the train hung on and continued to Bowling Green.
There, it passed through downtown and the western edge of Bowling Green State University.
"It's a highly populated area," said Sgt. Major Mike Blair with the Wood County sheriff's office. "Anything there, obviously we'd have had a lot of problems."
Rescue workers scrambled to railroad crossings to block cars and get ready in case of a derailment, according to Eric Larson, director of Wood County's emergency management agency.
Few people in North Baltimore knew the runaway train had passed through their community.
"I live right by the railroad tracks, and I didn't see or hear anything,'' said Eve Barbelin, 84. "You'd think somebody in town would have told us it was headed this way. But no one said a word to us. That's pretty upsetting.''
The second attempt to derail the train occurred just north of Galatea, a small town in southern Wood County, where CSX officials hoped to derail the train on a siding.
About 1 p.m., with the train bearing down, police ran into Equity Group Ohio Division, a meat processing plant just feet from the tracks, and told 68 people to run to their cars and start driving south.
"We didn't have a rendezvous point established," said Greg Beach, the company's safety manager. "We had five minutes, tops. When we told them we were evacuating, I didn't know what was going to happen, and they didn't have a clue, so it was pretty chaotic. We were still evacuating when it rolled by."
The evacuation halted first-shift production about three hours early at the Henry Township plant, which makes hamburgers, Mr. Beach said.
The derailment attempt failed, however, and the train crossed into Hancock County about 1:10 p.m.
It was going 47 mph when it entered the north side of Findlay.
"You just roll your eyes and say, 'What?!'" said Chief Deputy Wilcox Hancock County. "You try to station people ahead of it. Derailment is the first thing you worry about: Ball [Corp. Metal Beverage Container Group], Hancor, Whirlpool are along the tracks, [and there are] lots of residential areas that lie within 50 feet of the tracks. We could have had a complex of problems."
A convoy of squad cars, lights flashing and sirens blaring, kept alongside the train like it was being hijacked. Emergency vehicles and CSX personnel convoyed from State Rt. 25 north of Bowling Green to Cygnet, where they got on I-75 and drove south to Findlay, and then down U.S. 68 to Kenton.
At city and county borders, police would stop abruptly and hand off the chase to a new department. In all, police blocked more than 100 crossings in three counties.
Complicating the chaotic scene were the snarled traffic from the closed intersections and the crowds of spectators who lined the tracks along the route.
Josh Brass, a senior at Ohio Northern University, said he was asleep when his roommate, Derrick Jackson, heard about the train and woke him up. They jumped in a car and headed for Kenton.
"I'm a big train buff, and I know a lot of the roads around here where the train tracks go through," said Mr. Brass, 21, of Swanton. "We followed it just for something to do."
The train rolled into Hardin County at 1:59 p.m.
A CSX engineer slowed the train just north of Kenton by coupling a "catch engine'' to the rear of the train and applying his engine's brakes, Sergeant Alexander said.
"It looked pretty tricky. He really deserves a pat on the back, probably more than the guy who jumped aboard," said James Bostater, Hardin County's emergency management director.
Kenton police breathed a huge sigh of relief. If the train hadn't been slowed, it would have had to negotiate a sharp curve goinginto the city and then an S-curve at 47 mph.
Another engine was placed on the tracks south of the city, ready to hook onto the front of the train and apply its brakes if needed.
As the train slowed, CSX workers tried to jump on. Finally, Mr. Hosfeld was able to climb aboard the engine as it left Kenton.
Emergency crews said the train was stopped just in time. The line the train was on passes through a major junction in Ridgeway, eight miles south of Kenton.
State Rt. 31 was closed to traffic where the train sat after its dramatic stop.
The incident occurred while a CSX/Operation Lifesaver passenger train, which had traveled up the same track from Columbus to Walbridge, was turning around at Stanley Yard and was preparing to head back south. The passenger train's purpose was to promote grade-crossing safety, and law enforcement agencies along its route had staked out various crossings to write tickets to motorists who ignored warning lights or whistles from the train.
CSX ended up having to bus the safety train's 120 passengers back to the cities at which they had boarded, including Bowling Green, Findlay, and Kenton.
Upon boarding the runaway, trainmaster Hosfeld reported over the radio that he had found the locomotive throttle to be in the full-power-forward position, the locomotive's brake fully applied, and the air pressure in the train braking system reduced by 20 percent from normal, Mr. Landrum said.
Blade staff writers David Patch, Steve Murphy, and Brian Dugger contributed to this report.
First Published January 10, 2013, 6:43 p.m.
