Chemical leak evacuates Sullivan T stop, affects MBTA and I-93 traffic

Instead of going to a subway station or to North Station to catch their regular trains, most had to take a combination of subway, bus and railroad transportation to get to places as far north as Haverhill, Newburyport and Rockport.

The reason for the strange ride home on this stormy night was the fact a railroad tank car carrying 20,000 gallons of hydochloric acid sprung a leak this morning on a railroad spur track near the Sullivan Square T station in Charlestown.

 updates: Subway | Commuter rail | Interstate 93

As a result, not only was it necessary to shutdown the Sullivan station, but also the Orange Line and the Haverhill/Reading and Newburyport/Rockport commuter rail lines. For several hours traffic on nearby I-93 had to slow to a crawl as ramps were shutdown and the streets below around Sullivan Square became tangled with cars, trucks and buses.

It is still uncertain when all would be back to normal, especially for the trains.

The leak that created the troubles galore was discovered just before 9:30 a.m.

The first thing fire department crews had to do was to seal off the area and then start working on ways to halt the chemical leak. From there came the task of determining just what to do versus off-loading remaining chemicals, which began late in the afternoon, and the moving of the rail car to a safer location.

All during this time officials also had to make sure a mass evacuation of homes and businesses would not be needed. So far only several families have had to find temporary shelter and there have been no report of any injuries.

Meanwhile, the MBTA knew early on it was faced with the huge task of figuring out how they could get thousands of stranded commuters out of Boston and home.

By mid-afternoon they had a complex plan in place ready to handle the crowds. As people stood in long lines at various stations in the rain bus after bus was quickly loaded and sent on its way.

Haverhill/Reading rail line commuters took the Green Line to Lechmere and then boarded buses for Wellington station in Medford. There they took the Orange Line one stop to Malden Center station where they picked up the commuter rail train north.

Commuters normally taking the Newburyport-Rockport rail line trains had to first take the Blue Line subway trains from downtown Boston to Wonderland station in Revere. There buses took them to the rail station in Lynn so the shuttle trains could take them to their final destination.

The T estimated most people would spend 90 minutes more than normal making their way home.

There were also people faced with the problem of being unable to retrieve their cars from the sealed off parking lots at Sullivan Square.

Prior to the commuter emergency going into effect at 2:30 the T had used buses to take rail passengers from Medford and Chelsea into North Station.

Train service from Beverly to Rockport had to be shutdown mid-day because morning commuter trains could not get from North Station back to keep service going during the first hours of the disruption.