A freight train carrying dangerous chemicals plunged from the rails on a steep downgrade in the Cajon Pass and exploded in flames before dawn Thursday, hurling a noxious cloud into the sky. The cause of the derailment was determined to be a combination of human and mechanical error. He said he was given a pamphlet on the subject and talked about it informally with a supervisor. The board's conclusions were among the first in which it has considered "corporate culture" in the search for the probable cause of an accident. Santa Fe GP35 #3454 and several other EMD's lead a string of empty hoppers eastbound over the summit of Cajon Pass in 1979. Hundreds along the beachfront were evacuated", http://cnlines.ca/CNcyclopedia/loco/sd40/#CN5300, Taiwan to pay damages to victim of train crash, "Amtrak, Family Settle Over Fatal Collision", "50,000 Flee Toxic Vapors Released as Train Derails", "Man Gets 17 1/2-year Term In 1992 Amtrak Derailment", "Cry, the beloved railway: revisiting the Barkly East branch line", "Looking back on the train derailment accident of Shenyang - Jilin railway in 1992: the angle cock of the train was closed and the driver drove up the earth slope", "Worst Train Crash in Kenya's History That Killed 140", http://blog.daum.net/_blog/BlogTypeView.do?blogid=0R7MZ&articleno=86&_bloghome_menu=recentthumb, http://imnews.imbc.com/20dbnews/history/1993/1919652_6127.html, https://web.archive.org/web/20020627181454/http://www.trainnet.org/Libraries/Lib001/NTSB.010%7C, "TWO KILLED, 15 INJURED IN CIRCUS TRAIN WRECK", "Railway Investigation Report R94T0357 - Transportation Safety Board of Canada", "In the Spotlight: Vaal Reefs, 10 May 1995", "Steam locomotive firebox explosion on the Gettysburg Railroad near Gardners, Pennsylvania June 16, 1995", "Steamtown Train Kills Brothers Boys Apparently Were Riding Atvs In Area Popular Among Youth When One Of The Vehicles Became Stuck In The Tracks", "Memories of the Largs Train Crash of 1995- 'It was like a bomb had gone off', "Looking back and moving forward: The 1995 Garmisch-Partenkirchen train collision", "Dos maquinistas muertos al descarrilar el expreso Barcelona-Mlaga en Despeaperros", "2 Killed in Fiery Train Wreck in Cajon Pass", Collision and Derailment of Maryland Rail Commuter MARC Train 286 and National Railroad Passenger Corporation Amtrak Train 29 Near Silver Spring, Maryland on February 16, 1996, "Tram accident in the Soviet Union (24 photos)", "An Express Train in Italy Jumps Tracks, Killing 8", "Train disaster in Pakistan takes at least 110 lives", "12 killed in train collision near New Delhi", "Sleeping on duty in advance, lying and escaping afterwards, a major accident in the collision of Beijing Harbin Railway on August 28, 1997", "16 ans aprs la catastrophe de Port-Sainte-Foy (24), des passages niveau sous surveillance", "Railway Investigation Report R99H0007 - Transportation Safety Board of Canada", "Collision between Indian Pacific Passenger Train 3AP88 and Freight Train 3PW4N, Zanthus, WA, 18 August 1999", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_rail_accidents_(19901999)&oldid=1149443576, This page was last edited on 12 April 2023, at 08:12. In the wreck last February, a freight train descending the treacherous pass began to speed up, and the engineer was unable to slow or stop it. Service on the track where the derailment happened was restored four days after the crash. . BEFORE that incident, on December 14, 1994, a BNSF predecessor (Santa Fe) train ran away and rear ended a standing UP near Cajon. If you are researching anything EMD related please visit this page first. Roy Gabriel photo. The valves were already defective at the time of the derailment, and this was not rectified in the two weeks between the derailment and the rupture. Northern-Santa Fe Railroad freight train that derailed Immediately after the rupture, the pipeline control operators detected a sudden change in pumping pressure (indicating possible rupture or severe leakage) in the area, but failed to take immediate action to stop the flow of product. However, the crew of the train in February elected to take it down the grade even though the device was not working properly. The acid from the ruptured tanker cars flowed onto U.S. Highway 24 north of the town of Leadville, and 18 people were taken to the Vail Valley Medical Center complaining of eye and respiratory irritation. Units in that wreck were ATSF 576-96-144-5976 that ran away and hit UP 3341/3354 that were the rear helpers on a coal train for dynamic braking down the hill. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Despite stakes being placed along the pipeline's route to show where it was to the crews cleaning up the spilled trona, the cleanup nonetheless caused undetected damage to the pipeline. The pipeline was marked with stakes during cleanup to avoid the risk of it being accidentally damaged. The train was carrying 178,000 pounds butyl acrylate, 158,000 pounds trimethyl phosphite, 191,000 pounds methyl ethyl ketone, 193,000 pounds denatured alcohol, one train car of petroleum distillates, and one train car of glycol. Author's collection. This page is not available in other languages. I put the train into full emergency [braking], but it continued to gain . The railroads agreed to the installation of the devices on virtually all freight trains operating anywhere in the nation by June 30, 1997. He said he never checked to see if the device was working before the train left Barstow and said company rules did not require him to do so. Engineer Hill and Brakeman Waterbury, who were in the helper locomotives, received minor injuries. The AT&SF was a major buyer of this locomotive and future EMD products. ", Fehr, Stephen C.; Henderson, Neil (August 1, 1991). Ung said officers evacuated the area nearby, which he said ", "7 Dead, 150 Injured in Subway Crash; Train Approaching Manhattan Station Jumps Tracks, Car Cut in Half.". Their instructions were to first help a northbound train (timetable westward) up the hill to Oban, then bring MJLBP-11 back down Cajon Pass to West Colton. . The dead were identified as the engineer and a student engineer, although their names were not immediately disclosed. Seven years after the accident, Southern Pacific was bought up by Union Pacific, which still runs trains over the rails where the derailment happened. The train reached a speed of about 100 miles per hour (160km/h) before derailing on an elevated 35 miles per hour (56km/h) curve next to Duffy Street, sending the head end locomotives and several cars off the high railroad bed and into houses on the street below, completely demolishing them. A freight train carrying 120,000 gallons of sulfuric acid down a steep Colorado mountainside derailed south of Vail early this morning, killing two crew members and puncturing at least two tanker cars containing 27,000 gallons of its poisonous cargo. https://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/22/us/a-derailment-in-colorado-kills-two.html. Following a series of name changes and failed expectations it became the Atlantic & Pacific Railway in 1870. About one-third of the citys visitors come by car from Southern California. Web posted at: 6:35 p.m. EST, SAN BERNARDINO, California (CNN) -- Authorities have In addition, severe flooding through the Temecula Canyon (about halfway between San Diego and San Bernardino) during January and February of 1884 caused $319,879 in damages, money the CS did not have. employees, a sheriff's department employee and California for treatment of injuries. then 45 mph. After the activation of the emergency brake, the only brakes which were operational were the air brakes, which were now melting from the friction and heat. Four more houses received moderate smoke and fire damage, while three others had only smoke damage. . The mandate now is that they must all remain functional. treatment after breathing fumes from the burning rail cars. Interstate 15. It was also discovered that the SP's engineer training program did not have any material on how to regain control of a runaway train, and the railroad's oversight on mountain operations was inadequate. The train was traveling at a calculated speed of 110 miles per hour (180km/h) when it entered a four-degree curve just north of the Highland Avenue overpass which had a maximum authorized speed of 40 miles per hour (64km/h) and derailed, plowing into the houses on the outside of the curve. "What we're looking at is this corporate culture situation where safety is not uppermost in everyone's mind," Lauby said. .. Thus, air brakes work optimally when traveling at speeds under 25 miles per hour (40km/h) as this is the speed at which traction is obtained more than heat via the input of friction between the shoes and the wheels. Youve got to get him out of there.. The derailment was the nation's fifth major railroad accident this month, and came as freight rail executives were traveling to Washington for a meeting on Thursday to discuss new safety initiatives. And that wasn't all; even into the early diesel days the AT&SF's gorgeous 4-8-4's could still be seen assisting the silvery, sleekSuper Chiefthrough Sullivan's Curve, a location made famous by Herb Sullivan who captured several stunning photos thanks to its wide open vistas. 1989 train crash and subsequent oil pipeline rupture in San Bernardino, California, USA. Pipeline officials remained on site as safety observers during the cleanup of the rail cars, but not during the cleanup of the trona material. American-Rails.com collection. Capt. The derailment occurred after a snowfall of 16 inches, but the cause was not clear. The accident occurred in the same area where a runaway Santa Fe freight train slammed into a parked coal train in 1994, injuring two crewmen. A destroyed locomotive and hopper cars following the derailment. His battles with the church arent over, How Palm Springs ran out Black and Latino families to build a fantasy for rich, white people, 17 SoCal hiking trails that are blooming with wildflowers (but probably not for long! NTSB investigators found gashes that were determined to have been left by a backhoe cleaning up the spilled cargo. A bad place to be in a train wreck. Initial Notification: On February 1, 1996, a runaway Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train, 4 locomotives and 49 cars, derailed on the south main track near the intersection of interstates I-15 and 138 in Cajon Junction, California. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. However, the Santa Fe showed much greater interest, lured in part by a 10,000-acre land grant, which the railroad believed offered incredible real estate potential. In a sad postscript, Locomotive Engineer Rudy A. Borrego II, Local Chairman of BLE Lodge 662, Los Angeles, died November 9, 2013, in a traffic accident on Highway 138, not far from Drawbar Flats. Reaching up through the cab window, they pulled the engineer from the locomotive and supported him as he limped to relative safety behind a large boulder, about 40 yards from the wreckage. This second line, located to the west and 2 miles longer, was not as steep with only a 2.2% maximum grade compared to the original's 3%. February 1, 1996 . A full body orgasm at the L.A. Phil? When the helper engineer realized that the train speed was not being adequately controlled, he made an emergency brake application, which deactivated dynamic braking, resulting in a runaway condition. Extra 7551 East proceeded to Oban, and the dispatcher instructed the crew to move into the siding at that location to await a westbound train that was being assisted by a helper unit; the helper unit would be cut off and used to assist Extra 7551 East over the Cajon Pass. train shortly after the crash and transported to a hospital The dispatcher determined that they would need the dynamic brakes of 5.23 functional engines (6 total) to maintain this optimal speed between 25 and 30 miles per hour (40 and 48km/h), so picking up only the one additional helper locomotive at Palmdale, as originally planned, would not provide sufficient dynamic braking effort for the 2.2% grade on the west side of Cajon Pass where the derailment happened, so instead of adding the single unit at Palmdale, the dispatcher ordered a two-unit helper set dispatched from the helper pool in West Colton, California. We saw the engineer trying to get out of the cab. In this Santa Fe publicity photo, a set of classic F units, led by F7A #252-C, climb the 2.25% grade over the newer alignment near the summit of Cajon Pass in April, 1964. And of course, Union Pacific also featured big power here such as the 2-8-8-0 "Bull Moose" Consolidation Mallet and 4-6-6-4 Challengers. Wes Barris's SteamLocomotive.com is simply the best web resource on the study of steam locomotives. The lead locomotive skidded onto it's right side and came to a rest almost 70% intact. Unit SP 7443 was repaired and repainted by SP and returned to service. Buried six feet underground alongside the track is a 14-inch high-pressure petroleum transit pipeline operated by Calnev Pipeline. The board said that if the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Corp. had followed through on promises to install and maintain a special emergency rear-end braking device on all trains descending the grade -- or if the Federal Railroad Administration had adequately regulated use of the device -- the accident would not have happened. would be used to determine if any other areas should be Train and helper crews of Southern Pacific 7551 East, "Pipeline That Triggered Fire Reactivated: Judge in Santa Ana Says He Lacks Jurisdiction to Halt Flow", "Railroad Accident Report Derailment of Southern Pacific Transportation Company Freight Train on May 12, 1989, and Subsequent Rupture of Calnev Petroleum Pipeline on May 25, 1989 San Bernardino, California", "The Cross at the Loop" by Kevin Stevens, The Kern Junction Railroad Photo Gallery, "The Great San Bernardino Train Wreck" by Hatch & Judy Graham, California State University, San Bernardino, California University of Science and Medicine, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=San_Bernardino_train_disaster&oldid=1146184289, History of San Bernardino County, California, Accidents and incidents involving Southern Pacific Railroad, Transportation in San Bernardino County, California, Railway accidents and incidents in California, Transportation in San Bernardino, California, Short description with empty Wikidata description, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, 7 (3 train crew on SP 7551 East and 4 residents), Allan Riess, Brakeman on 3rd locomotive (age 43), Lawrence Hill, Engineer on helper unit 7443 (age 42), Robert Waterbury, Brakeman on helper unit 7443 (age 57), Warren, Jennifer. The noxious cloud--generated by flaming chemicals that continued to burn hours after the 4 a.m. crash--prompted the evacuation of the entire 10-mile-long canyon and shut down all traffic on Interstate 15, the principal highway between Southern California and Las Vegas. Thomas and his friends will make an appearance in Washington at the Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie. The train catapulted from the 35mph curve next to Duffy Street, scattering locomotives and cars, as well as lading. Seconds later, as the Burlington Northern Santa Fe train entered a curve at more than four times the authorized speed, it hurtled from the rails and exploded in flames, killing the conductor and a trainman and leaving Foster pinned in the wreckage with a broken back. "He was blood from head to toe," Davis said, adding that the During an initial trip to the east coast he was unsuccessful in convincing such magnates as Jay Gould or Tom Scott to undertake such an endeavor. Department of Transportation workers. A popular pastime for many is studying and/or exploring abandoned rights-of-way. mountain side all lit up." Activities of Helper Unit. While Strong worked on a permanent foothold in the Golden State, San Diego leaders lobbied hard for the Santa Fe to reach their town. The engineer, Lawrence Hill, in helper assignment was aware this locomotive's brakes were not functioning properly but failed to relay this information to the head-end. It is an excellent resource with thousands of historic maps on file throughout the country. From this point they crossed the Mojave Desert and over Cajon Pass before arriving in Los Angeles on March 21st that year. Why is Frank McCourt really pushing it? The second locomotive in the head-end set, SP 7551, since it was dead-in-tow, did not have operative dynamic brakes, just air brakes. By then, investigators said, the tank cars were beginning to explode, spewing their volatile contents in an expanding cloud that spread quickly across the canyon. However, he was able to crawl out of his wrecked locomotive and was helped down by eyewitnesses on the scene. highway link between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Nevada. But he said that tests he performed before reaching the summit of Cajon Pass showed that the device was not working. Since the railroad was provided a great deal of property from Kimball's National Ranch, it launched construction from National City (also the location of its primary shops), just south of San Diego. When the train was stretched, air flowed the length of the train as it should. Cajon Pass gained national attention on the morning of May 12, 1989 when a westbound Southern Pacific freight, carrying 69 loads of trona (a raw mineral used to process sodium carbonate), lost control descending the grade, derailed, and smashed into a residential area of San Bernardino along Duffy Street destroying seven houses. Cajon Pass near the intersections of California Route 138 and It proved a difficult task but they were able to maintain a maximum grade of 3.4% for eastbound movements between Cajon and Summit, which sits at an elevation of 3,823 feet above sea level. [8] Other nearby plots which could be redeveloped sat empty for years, though as of 2016, at least three houses have been rebuilt there. The dramatization was broadcast with the title "Unstoppable Train" in the United States. The crew departed Mojave at 12:15a.m. on May 12, and headed south (railroad direction east) approximately three miles to Fleta, where they were to pick up the 69 freight cars. At around 2:30 a.m. on the morning of February 27, 1967, Santa Fe's train #8, the eastbound "Fast Mail Express," exits from one of the two tunnels (since daylighted) on Cajon Pass. Hinds, Michael de Courcy (March 8, 1990). . Once dynamic braking had been defeated by the helper engineer's emergency brake application the enormous weight of the heavily loaded cars caused rapid acceleration that could not be resisted solely by mechanical braking. Due to maintenance equipment being parked on the track at the south end of the Fleta siding, it was necessary for the train crew to pick up the cars from the north end, take them back to Mojave and run around them, before heading south to Palmdale, where it was originally intended to pick up an additional helper that would be placed on the rear of the train to aid in braking after cresting Cajon Pass. The fire and fumes from toxic chemicals carried aboard the On this day 25 years ago marked the 2nd runaway train crash on Cajon Pass. Theyre coming.. The engineers weren't found to be at fault at all, as they acted within reason. American-Rails.com collection. During inspection of the pipeline after the rupture, more debris from one of the wrecked locomotives was discovered near the point of rupture. Thirteen days after the train wreck on May 25, 1989, at 8:05a.m., shortly after eyewitnesses heard a train pass through the derailment site, the pipeline burst at a point on the curve where the derailment happened, showering the neighborhood with gasoline, which ignited into a large fire that burned for close to seven hours and emitted a plume of flames three hundred feet into the air.
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cajon pass train wreck 1996