Ung said that the accident occurred just after 4 a.m. in the It is an excellent resource with thousands of historic maps on file throughout the country. Thursday near San Bernardino and exploded in flames, sending Today, with the breathtaking scenery, numerous daily trains, and tough work required to move freight over the pass it is a big attraction for those who like to watch and film trains. April 24, 1996 12 AM PT TIMES STAFF WRITER SAN BERNARDINO Speaking from his wheelchair Tuesday in calm, measured tones, locomotive engineer Lester Foster described the Feb. 1 crash of a. 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. "Basic safety jobs were not being done. The train ranaway beyond the crew's control on the 3% downgrade out of Summit. Even American Locomotive's beautiful PA model would occasionally make an appearance. The trains engineer, who suffered a broken back in the crash, was pulled from the wreckage by three men who braved the spreading fire and fumes to save him. . One strategy being discussed, said Frias, was allowing the The combination of weight miscalculation, poor communication and faulty brake equipment resulted in a total train weight that was too great to adequately control on the down grade. When that happens, the engineer has only partial use of the air brakes. She felt paralyzed: L.A. woman sues Big Surs Esalen Institute for alleged use of video with N-word in class, Dramatic video from rescue of driver who plunged more than 500 feet off Bay Area cliff. Copyright 1996 Cable News Network, Inc. They just called AAA and got an alternate route. On Feb. 1, when the accident occurred, there was no mandate by either the railroad or the Federal Railroad Administration requiring freight trains to be equipped with the devices, even though they were in widespread use. The site of the derailment is about 20 miles Sheriff's Department watch commander. On Feb. 22, the nations 10 largest railroads agreed to place the devices on all trains operating on mountain grades by Dec. 15. As a result of this and other runaway incidents involving locomotives with dynamic braking, the Federal Railroad Administration reversed its mandate that dynamic braking be disabled when train brakes are placed in emergency. Into the diesel days interesting lash-ups could still be found with long strings of F units working freights and passenger trains over the grades. It happened when a commuter train running between Jersey City . Five years earlier, a Southern Pacific freight train careened out of control down a parallel track in the Cajon Pass before plunging over an embankment into seven homes in San Bernardino, killing two boys in one home. Investigators say that with part of the air brake system out of commission, Fosters train was doomed to crash on the long, twisting downgrade. However, sources close to the investigation said the brakemens apparent decision to leap would seem to indicate that the train was accelerating out of control, either because of brake failure or crew error. Also onboard were fiberboard, tires, fuel oil, lubrication oil, and diesel oil. Conceived by Ross Rowland it failed due to lack of funding. The shipment would move by rail to the Port of Los Angeles, then by ship to Colombia, South America. NTSB officials said a black box recorder recovered from the wreckage of Fosters locomotive appears to support the engineers account of what happened. Just type in a town or city and click on the timeline of maps at the bottom of the page! She told her husband, Gerald Davis, what she had seen. 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. Each hopper car had wheels that were equipped with an ordinary air brake. A $300-million (minimum) gondola to Dodger Stadium? Patrick Davis, who was having difficulty breathing, was admitted to St. Bernardines Hospital in San Bernardino, where he later was listed in serious condition, suffering from chemical inhalation. The mandate now is that they must all remain functional. Foster said that although he applied the air brakes as the heavily laden train began descending the steep, 24-mile grade, we started gaining a little speed. As soon as the train crested the apex of the grade at Hiland and started downgrade on the south side of Cajon Pass, it became apparent to Holland at the head end that he was having trouble controlling the speed of the train. The conductor, head-end brakeman, and two residents were killed in the wreck. By August, 1883 the Santa Fe had completed its route to the California border at Needles but, due to the original A&P's charter, could only meet the Southern Pacific at that point. Sadly, both the conductor, Gilbert Ortiz, and brakeman, Kevin Williams, perished. Realizing the StL&SF's completion could seriously jeopardize its own transcontinental aspirations, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe became involved. Throughout the Santa Fe era, Cajon was a testing ground; it convinced management that oil was a more practical fuel than coal for steam locomotives and saw rigorous trials of Electro-Motive's new FT diesel set. David Gunther, a safety official for the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe, said the train crew was fully qualified to make the run. I remember when we first moved to Wrightwood in 1996, there was a train derailment near the 15 & 138. . At the time the A&P was under General John Fremont's direction, an individual who was successful in securing about one million acres in federal land grants to see the southern leg completed. Cajon Pass near the intersections of California Route 138 and On Feb. 1, a Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in the Cajon Pass 60 miles east of Los Angeles, killing two crew members and forcing the closing of the main highway between Los Angeles and Phoenix. [4] Clerks in Mojave had miscalculated the weight of the train, while the engineer and crew at the head end were unaware that one of the rear helper engines had inoperative dynamic brakes. The information includes original numbers, serials, and order numbers. Ung said that the accident occurred just after 4 a.m. in the Cajon Pass near the intersections of California Route 138 and Interstate 15. The A&P remained focused on the west coast although, despite its grandiose name, was primarily interested in a western route from Springfield only. Cajon Pass has had it's share of runaway trains and it's likely more will take place in the future. Fort Walton Beach, Florida, "Today in Local History", California's largest hazardous chemical spill, Fairview Avenue grade crossing/Fairview Station, overruns the station platform at Shady Grove and collides with a stored train, List of accidents by death toll, category "other", "SBB-Crash in der Waadt: Der Lokfhrer ist tot", Philadelphia Subway Crash Kills 3; 150 Are Hurt, 20.08.1990 szlak Pruszkw Warszawa Wochy, "Railroad Accident Report RAR-92-01: Derailment and Collision of Amtrak Passenger Train 66 with MBTA Commuter Train 906 at Back Bay Station, Boston, Massachusetts, December 12, 1990", "Villamos- s kzlekedsmnia - A 24-es villamos Vajda Pter utcai balesete", "Freight Train Derails, Closes Freeway: Seacliff: Fourteen of the Southern Pacific's 42 cars, four of them carrying chemicals, left the tracks just after noon Sunday. Trimethyl phosphite is a catalyst used in manufacturing, and butyl acrylate is used in the manufacture of plastics. USCG district 11. The dramatization was broadcast with the title "Unstoppable Train" in the United States. The disaster was featured in "Runaway Train", a Season 3 (2005) Crash Scene Investigation episode of the Canadian TV series Mayday. Hong, K. P. (May 15, 1991). On May 12, 1989, at 7:36a.m. a 6-locomotive/69-car Southern Pacific freight train (SP 7551 East, computer symbol 1 MJLBP-11) that was transporting trona, lost control while descending Cajon Pass, derailed on an elevated curve and plowed into a residential area on Duffy Street. I-15 is not expected to reopen until this afternoon. "What we're looking at is this corporate culture situation where safety is not uppermost in everyone's mind," Lauby said. The dynamic brakes of the fourth locomotive, SP 9340, operated sporadically and were of limited use. Thus, among the four locomotives in front and the set of helpers on the end, only SP 8278 at the front of the train and SP 7443 at the back of the train had fully functioning dynamic brakes. 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. Pipeline officials remained on site as safety observers during the cleanup of the rail cars, but not during the cleanup of the trona material. Fosters train had such a device, but--as testimony confirmed Tuesday--the device had not been armed. When it derailed, it was descending a steep grade on 10,242-foot-high Tennessee Pass between the towns of Leadville and Minturn, about 15 miles south of Vail. One of Cajon's first noteworthy improvement projects occurred in 1913 when a second line was completed (boasting two tunnels), to help accommodate growing traffic levels. She felt paralyzed: L.A. woman sues Big Surs Esalen Institute for alleged use of video with N-word in class, Dramatic video from rescue of driver who plunged more than 500 feet off Bay Area cliff. The project was spearheaded during the 1880's under AT&SF's most influential and important leader, William Barstow Strong. The latter began as the Pacific Railroad (PR), chartered by the State of Missouri for the purpose of linking St. Louis with the Pacific coast. He was 38. The event recorder downloaded from unit SP 7549 (the third locomotive), showed that it was producing traction current in motoring but no current in dynamic braking. The engineers weren't found to be at fault at all, as they acted within reason. Return to LunarLight . The 144 is the one that missed the sequence. All 69 hopper cars were destroyed and scrapped at the crash site. By the time the fire was out, it had fatally burned two people, and destroyed eleven more houses and 21 cars. The drivers of four big-rig trucks that rolled north through the plume stopped later in Barstow, where fire department medical personnel treated them for nausea. The buyer had purchased 6,900 tons of trona; thus the mining company, Lake Minerals, contracted for 69 100-ton coal hopper cars (which had a combination of D&RGW and SP reporting marks), which were to be loaded by an outside contractor at Rosamond. is worth, but here are the facts. Mr. Williams died early Thursday when the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation train derailed and caught fire as it rounded a downhill bend on the Cajon Pass northeast of Los Angeles. The National Transportation Safety Board, which dispatched two investigators, said the train's brakes might have failed. NTSB investigators found gashes that were determined to have been left by a backhoe cleaning up the spilled cargo. "Derailed Train's Load Said Above Crew's Figures. Youve got to get him out of there.. Eleven people were killed in a collision between a commuter train and an Amtrak train in Silver Spring, Md., last Friday, and three were killed in the collision of two commuter trains in Jersey City on Feb. 6. 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%. However, Don Strack rescued the data and transferred it over to his UtahRails.net site (another fine resource). Here is the accident report for the H BALAT1-31 which ran away and derailed, at Drawbar Flats, on Cajon Pass, in 1996. . About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . The National Transportation Safety Board said it could be late today before the fire is fully out and investigators are able to study the site. At 9:00 PM on May 11, a three-man crew consisting of Frank Holland, an engineer; Everett Crown, a conductor; and Allan Riess, a brakeman, was brought on duty at SP's Bakersfield yard. California, and was headed for Los Angeles. 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. and direction and to test for humidity. At dawn, red flames could be seen roiling up from the The faster a wheel moves, the more difficult friction is converted to braking power versus heat. Cajon Pass(pronounced, "KA-HOAN," which means box in Spanish) is, indeed, a box canyon, located just northwest of San Bernardino, California and less than 65 miles from downtown Los Angeles. Capt. Authorities said 30 to 36 of the cars pose a But he said that tests he performed before reaching the summit of Cajon Pass showed that the device was not working. American railroads have merged into large, far-flung companies while downsizing middle management and giving on-the-scene workers more decision-making authority. 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. Fumes from both can burn skin and eyes, and both cause irritation to nasal and esophageal passages if inhaled. The Triplex locomotive was a unique design intended to offer maximum tractive effort in slow, drag service. Thomas and his friends will make an appearance in Washington at the Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. Normally, brakes are controlled from the locomotive with the engineer regulating the pressure in the brake line. Engr Borrego was up on Cajon pass to replace the flags at the memorial prior to Veterans Day. 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. According to Keith Bryant, Jr.'s excellent book, ". would be used to determine if any other areas should be By January 2, 1882 there were 55 miles completed to Fallbrook Junction and later that year, on August 16th, track crews arrive in Colton (just south of San Bernardino). May 13, 1989 12 AM PT Times Staff Writers SAN BERNARDINO A runaway freight train careened down the Cajon Pass, leaped the tracks, plunged down a 30-foot embankment and slammed into seven. Anyways, speaking of train wrecks, and cajonies, I think the forum has had it's fair share of "train wreck" sob stories, and only some . American-Rails.com collection. In the end, the California Southern received much more than originally agreed upon; this included 17,356 acres of land south of San Diego, two miles of property along the waterfront, 486 city lots for a depot and terminal, and finally $25,410 in cash. Today, there are tens of thousands of miles scattered throughout the country. The FT started it all for the builder, bolstering its position as the leader in the diesel locomotive market. overturned cars. When he realized that the train was gathering too much speed, he did all he could to control the train speed using the train's air brakes and the dynamic brakes of the lead locomotives, and asked the helper engine's engineer to do as much as he could to help also, not knowing that he had only one working dynamic brake in his set. We learned about it on our own, Foster said. The NTSB testified before a Senate Committee on a broad range of accidents, including the 1994 Cajon Pass incident. While the rest of the train was crunched into about 100 -200 feet of wreckage. 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. Although the cause of the crash has not been determined officially, Tuesdays testimony by Foster and other witnesses at a National Transportation Safety Board hearing supported increasing evidence that the accident occurred because the main brake air line was blocked--possibly when an air hose became pinched between two cars. Robert Lauby, chief of the board's rail safety section, said local managers had misinterpreted an order from top railroad officials and routinely ran trains down the grade with inoperable rear-end braking devices. By assuming the maximum weight of the train, that would guarantee that the dispatcher would assign at least the minimum number of locomotives needed to ensure that the train would have enough braking capacity needed to keep the train under control on steep grades. NTSB Chairman Jim Hall says the wreck is one of at least 10 during the last three years that could have been prevented if the trains had been equipped with working remote control devices. Following a thorough investigation the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) discovered that one of the locomotive's on the head-end had inoperative dynamic brakes as did one of the rear helper units. Officials were concerned about where the smoke might be The 5037 is 50-37=13; the 148 is 1+4+8=13; the 152 is 15-2=13; finally, the. In fact, we have some friends driving in from Los Angeles who were supposed to take Interstate 15. Learn more about these events here! During cleanup, Calnev only inspected short segments of the pipeline - generally around places where train wreckage had landed on top of the pipe. There were also northern and southern routes commissioned. at Drawbar Flats, on Cajon Pass, in 1996. https: . . One could witness all of Santa Fe's big power here such as 4-8-2's double-heading passenger consists like thePacific Limitedwhile 2-10-2 "Santa Fe's" and 2-10-10-2 "3000 Class" Mallets fought heavy freights over the pass, sometimes double-headed while others were cut in mid-train. Department of Transportation workers. American-Rails.com collection. They were sold for parts to Precision National and scrapped at the crash site. The AT&SF was a major buyer of this locomotive and future EMD products. The train's 4 locomotives and 45 out of the 49 cars tumbled off the tracks, rolled onto their sides and exploded into a fiery inferno. The train was carrying 178,000 pounds butyl acrylate, 158,000 pounds . [4][5] The total property damage was US$14.3 million (equivalent to $31.3million in 2021), with more of this damage resulting from the fire than from the train derailment, although there were more fatalities from the derailment. The driver of the truck is killed by the collision, and fifty-four passengers are injured in the ensuing derailment. Both helper units derailed, but were still operable. This information was not passed on to the train dispatcher. 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. What bags are affected? He said his back was hurting. [2][3] Seven houses on the street immediately next to the tracks were demolished by the wreck, as were the lead locomotives and all of the freight cars. A Second catastrophe struck the accident ravaged neighborhood two weeks later on May 25th, when the petroleum pipeline that parallelled the rail line ruptured and exploded, destroying eleven more homes and killing two more residents. Today, BNSF continues to utilize the pass, as does Union Pacific. After that accident, the management of the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company -- now part of the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe -- promised to install new safety devices. It is here where the story of a rail route through Cajon Pass begins. The Federal Railroad Administration also proposed new rules, which Hall complained are bottled up in the Office of Management and Budget. The air brakes on MJLBP-11's fully loaded hopper cars (100 tons each on a 2.2% grade) had only a limited effect on the braking potential of the train, becoming exponentially weaker and hotter as the speed of the train increased. If you are researching anything EMD related please visit this page first. In addition, four residents were killed in their homes.
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