LAWRENCE — John Farrington was horrified to see a man in a motorized wheelchair get stuck on the train tracks that run across Andover Street recently.
The man tried without luck to dislodge himself for a few minutes before a good samaritan in a passing van jumped out and got him moving again.
From his diner on Broadway, Farrington sees scenes like that all the time. Bicycles and baby strollers — even cars — have trouble traveling across what he likes to call "the can opener."
"These steel shards stick right up. You've got to see it. It does look just like a can opener," Farrington said. "It's really a hazard. It looks like hell."
Anyone who lives in the South Lawrence area or uses Andover Street to travel through the city knows how bad the tracks have gotten in the past.
But since a May 9 train derailment there, the situation has reached a breaking point, with residents wanting to know when they will be fixed.
A railroad tanker car laden with 250,000 pounds of sodium chlorate was pulled across the tracks and derailed, ripping open and spilling the white sandy oxidizing powder on the tracks, which cross Andover Street just west of Blanchard Street.
The cause of the derailment is still under investigation, but a faulty switch is being looked at as a possible cause.
"There's buckets of tar, equipment and wood, just trash strewn on both sides of the track still," Farrington said. "And nothing's being done. There's been no repairs for years. What do you have to do?"
Pan Am Railways, which owns one of the tracks there, has pledged to patch up that stretch. The company's spokeswoman, Cynthia Scarano, said work is slated to begin there in three weeks.
Both freight cars and commuter trains pass over the tracks more than a dozen times a day.
"We have been working with a city engineer. We have every intention of fixing it," Scarano said. "The rubber material that protects the vehicles in between the tracks can wear out."
Michael Sweeney, city planner, said getting train companies to do anything is frustrating.
"They feel they don't have to respond. They think they are untouchable, immune to public opinion, insular," he said. "Sometimes you need to contact people at the Statehouse just to get a phone call back."
Lawrence has put pressure on rail companies in the past to no avail. Sweeney said he didn't know of a plan to start work in the next month, but would check into it.
"It's not something we can go out and fix," Sweeney said. "We're happy to call on this particular item and make them aware of our concerns."
Mayor Michael Sullivan had not heard of the wheelchair incident before talking to a reporter last week.
"That's not good," he said.
Last Thursday, the scene at the tracks was chaotic at lunchtime.
Some cars nearly came to a halt, trying to move as slowly as they could to avoid any damage, while others tried swerving to avoid the pits in the track.
"They're tire eaters. I'd love to see them fixed," said Jim Donohue, who lives farther up Andover Street and tries to avoid going over the tracks. "You have one of them points in your tire and you're $70 in the hole."
