Lakeland Electric recovers 310-ton engine 14 days after it fell from train. How bad is it?

LAKELAND — It's taken Lakeland Electric two weeks to retrieve a 310-ton engine off CSX railroad tracks. Now the municipal-owned utility is anxiously waiting to see whether the generator can be recovered or needs a new part.

Tori Bombard, LE's assistant director of energy production, said the train derailment that sent one of Lakeland Electric's six new $10 million RICE engines toppling onto railroad tracks on Oct. 17 was caused by a logistical error. Deugro, a logistics coordinator responsible for shipping the units from the Port of Tampa to Lakeland's McIntosh` Plant, failed to run a mapping car to ensure the rails would be free from obstructions.

"Each of the engines had tarps on them to protect them," she said. "When the engines arrived at the plant, there had been tree limbs and the tarps had been ripped."

A ripped tarp over Engine 5 caught on the rail switch, Bombard said. When the switch was flipped, the rails that were directing cars south began shifting north, causing three rail cars and the locomotive to turn over around 9:30 a.m. Oct. 17.

"We didn't even know they were coming," she said. "It was one of our employees had to inform the plant."

It took until Monday to get the proper equipment in place to lift Engine 1 and transport it the rest of the way to the power plant.

There was damage to the CSX rails, which Bombard said was "nothing too bad." Repair work was underway Friday.

How bad is it?

David Holdener, Lakeland Electric's project manager for the reciprocal engine plant, said employees from the German-based manufacturer MAN are on the ground assessing the extent of the damage to Engine 1 and whether it's recoverable.

Immediately after the derailment, CSX sent its equipment out to the area and wanted to use it to pull Engine 1 off the rails. Holdener said Lakeland Electric stopped it in hopes of recovering the engine.

"We already have schedule issues that we are dealing with in plant construction," he said. "We want to preserve any chance at all to recover the engine and put it on its foundation."

MAN has already begun assessing the extent of damage to Engine 1, which wound up falling and laying on the B cylinder side. Every single one of the engine's nine heads have been destroyed, according to Holdener, and the weight fell on the camshaft cover, causing misalignments and raising other concerns.

Holdener said if the engine can be recovered, the city will be seeking an extended warranty on the unit. German-based MAN is a sister company to the more widely know automotive manufacturer, Volkswagon.

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"It's becoming a financial decision," he said.

The company has identified a stock engine that it has offered to strip it down and ship over the short block for Engine 1. This process could take three to four months, according to Holdener, causing it to arrive next March or April.

Does this affect work on the building

Holdener said he's been looking over the project's timeline to identify what work on the RICE plant can continue moving forward. Engine 1 would have been the eastern-most engine in the six-unit configuration, which he said should allow some flexibility.

Unfortunately, Holdener said he can't begin operating the natural-gas powered plant without the surrounding building being fully enclosed. One wall will need to be left open in order to later slide Engine 1 into place. If necessary, one option may be to close the building off using a temporary wall until new parts can arrive. Holdener said he hopes to have an answer from MAN by early next week.

Sara-Megan Walsh can be reached at swalsh@theledger.com or 863-802-7545. Follow on X @SaraWalshFL.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Lakeland Electric assessing damage to $10M RICE engine