Leaders assess damage to Waterbury Metro-North line

WATERBURY, Conn. (WTNH) — Transportation leaders took a tour of the Metro-North tracks on Thursday, to assess the destruction after last weekend’s flash flooding.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority [MTA] and Connecticut’s Department of Transportation [DOT] said that the Metro-North Waterbury Branch Line was hit hard by Sunday’s storm.

The worst of it was a stretch of train tracks near the Naugatuck River Reservoir.

“It’s a big project to bring the line back,” Catherine Rinaldi, president of the MTA Metro-North Railroad, said. “We’re going to have to dump a lot of stone. We’re going to have some logistical challenges in terms of completing the work.”

The video below aired on Aug. 22.

Steve Kilpert, MTA’s deputy director of track, projects, and production, said one major challenge is getting equipment and material into the gap that is about 40 feet deep and 220 feet long.

“We’re going to have to bring this section down and begin to fill a section here, to be able to walk a piece of equipment in there, to be able to reach the bottom parts, to be able to place the rock,” Kilpert said. “We can’t just throw [the rocks] in the hole. We can’t hope it goes where it needs to go. We have to place it where it needs to be.”

The MTA said that the section in Seymour was one of four areas that was damaged along the Waterbury branch line.

“A thousand-year storm seems to happen every year now,” Rinaldi said. “So, we’re very mindful of the need to make the investments to be able to harden the [MTA] system.”

Connecticut DOT Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto said that the repairs will cost millions of dollars, but they may be covered by federal funding.

“This is entirely state funded right now,” Eucalitto said. “We’re going to, hopefully, meet the threshold for FEMA assistance.”

Leaders had a message for the nearly 900 riders who rely on the Waterbury rail line.

“We appreciate everybody’s patience during outages of this kind,” Rinaldi said. “It’s not fun for anybody, but we’re here to tell people that we’re going to get it fixed as soon as possible.”

Eucalitto said he hopes the rail line is fixed within 30 days, and they need the entire line open in order to move commuters safely.

In the meantime, the DOT is providing shuttle bus service along the Waterbury Metro-North line.

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