Maryland Train Derailment Damages Verizon Fiber, Disrupts Service
A CSX freight train derailment damaged Verizon facilities Monday night in Ellicott City, Md. The damaged network facilities include “our fiber, which is an aerial cable (containing multiple fiber lines) along the railway bridge that was damaged when the train derailed,” a Verizon spokeswoman told us. The derailing train cars killed two teenage girls and raised questions Tuesday about the region’s rail safety and telecom reliability. Several derailed coal cars fell to a parking lot below the tracks (http://bit.ly/NeHBMT).
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"Some Verizon customers in the area may have trouble completing long-distance calls, and data services for some business and government customers may also be affected,” the carrier said shortly before noon Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnmoo9). In an update issued around 2 p.m. (http://xrl.us/bnmor2), Verizon said customers may also be unable to make local calls in the region. Verizon clarified all the services that were unaffected in its second update: “There is no impact on high-speed Internet (DSL) or FiOS services for consumers and small businesses. Wireless and 911 services are also not affected."
"Our telecommunications staff is in communications with Verizon personnel,” a Maryland Public Service Commission spokeswoman said. “We understand from Verizon that 911 is not out, and that individual customers are not out of service.” Verizon’s OC3s are affected, which means “some customers might have a slightly harder than usual time connecting calls,” she said. The Verizon spokeswoman was unable to specify the number of people affected late Tuesday afternoon.
Verizon awaited permission to access the derailment site and repair its facilities, it said in its first statement. Its staff is ready to work “round-the-clock shifts” to restore service, Verizon said. Local authorities granted permission by mid-afternoon, but its staff still was unable to access the derailment site, according to Verizon. The afternoon statement also said Verizon had restored “more than half of the affected services by rerouting network traffic to other facilities.” Verizon promised continued updates.
Verizon has also been communicating with those affected by the outages, a source told us, and relayed a private update Verizon submitted late afternoon Tuesday. Verizon technicians had received access to the cable damage and began restoring it, the carrier apparently told our source. The carrier’s staff, equipment and the new cable were all in Ellicott City and ready for the deployment, according to this message. It described CSX staff as on site and at work removing derailed train cars, which the note said was a potential delay. The rerouting also continued and Verizon’s estimate on return to service was about 10 p.m. EDT Tuesday, with a repair time of about eight to 10 hours, the private message said. Verizon declined to comment on the authenticity of the message. An Associated Press report indicated derailment-caused server problems affected government operations as far away as the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba (http://xrl.us/bnmo2x).