On the 12th of May, 1989, a freight train would begin its journey down the Cajon Pass
in California, heading towards San Bernardino.
For the crew on board it was a routine journey.
They did not, as the train crested the highest point of the pass, know that a miscalculation
had already ensured that their train was doomed to derail, and that in doing so it would start
a chain of events that would lead to a devastating double disaster further down the line.
Cajon Pass is a mountain pass in California’s San Gabriel Mountains.
It is located in the Mojave Desert and is a significant link between the San Bernardino
Area and the Victor Valley and Las Vegas areas.
Trains have been traversing this pass since the early 1880s when the Atchison, Topeka
and Santa Fe Railway built the very first line through the pass to connect Barstow to
San Diego.
Another major rail company, the Southern Pacific Transportation Company (or Southern Pacific),
also had a line running through the pass.
Southern Pacific operated an extensive railroad network that came into existence in 1865,
helping to pioneer the original Transcontinental Railroad.
One of the major commodities Southern Pacific moved through the Cajon Pass in 1989 was trona
– a sand-like sodium carbonate compound, mined by the company Lake Minerals.
The day before the disaster a Southern Pacific train arrived at Mojave Railyard with a cargo
of trona.
The train consisted of 3 locomotives and sixty-nine 91,000 kilogram (or 100 ton) hopper cars loaded
with trona.
Lake Minerals supplied paperwork for the yard clerk, including a bill of lading – a piece
of paperwork bearing the details of the train’s cargo.
In this case, however, Lake Minerals had not filled out the weight.
The yard clerk, Thomas Blair, called Lake Minerals, only to find their listed phone
number no longer in service.
Frustrated, he went out and inspected the train’s cargo.
He observed the loads of trona and judged that they would weigh approximately the same
as equivalent loads of coal.
With this in mind, he estimated that each car weighed around 54,000 kilograms, (or 60
tons).
This put the estimated weight of the train at five and a half million kilograms (or 6,150
tons) overall.
Just after 9:00pm, the crew arrived at the yard.
This crew was made up of Engineer Frank Holland, Conductor Everett Crown, and Brakeman Allan
Riess, all of them experienced railway workers.
The crew manned their locomotives, one of which could not be started.
The defunct locomotive was switched out with another, and the train departed at a quarter
past midnight on the 12th of May, bound for West Colton.
The climb up the mountain was uneventful, though the train did stop in a siding to add
“helper units”.
Two extra locomotives were added to the train to provide assistance slowing the train down
on steep downward gradients.
The crew in these two additional locomotives were Engineer Lawrence Hill and Brakeman Robert
Waterbury.
The train now had four locomotives at the head end, sixty-nine hopper cars, and two
locomotives at the rear.
A little after 2:00am it left the siding and set off down the Cajon Pass.
As the sun rose, the train reached the peak of the pass.
The crew activated their dynamic brakes – a braking system which converts the kinetic
energy of the train into electrical energy, slowing the train in the process.
Air brakes were also activated.
The train was meant to go no more than forty kilometers per hour (or twenty-five miles
per hour) down the mountain.
Any faster would be unsafe for the curves along the route.
At first, a safe speed was maintained, but soon conductor Everett Crown noticed the train
had reached forty-eight kilometers per hour (or thirty miles per hour).
He increased the brake pressure…
but this did nothing.
The speed continued to increase.
Engineer Lawrence Hill observed the increasing speed in the helper units and knew something
was amiss.
He applied the emergency brakes.
This slowed the train momentarily, but it quickly picked up speed again.
Indeed, it began accelerating much faster, maxing out the speedometer on board.
Smoke billowed from the wheels.
Conductor Everett Crown contacted the West Colton Terminal’s Assistant General Yard
Master, reporting:
“We have a slight problem.
I don’t know if we can get this train stopped.”
Hearing this, Engineer Lawrence Hill broke in, shouting:
“Mayday!
Mayday!
7551, West Colton AGYM.
We’re doing ninety miles per hour.
Nine.
Zero.
Out of control.
Won’t be able to stop until we reach Colton.”
Despite this frantic call for help, nothing could be done.
The crews braced themselves for the inevitable, and at 7:36am, the train flew off an elevated
curve.
Tragically, this curve was the location of the residential neighborhood of Duffy Street
in San Bernardino, which the train ploughed directly into.
Seven houses were destroyed.
The entire train derailed, with the first four locomotives and all sixty-nine hopper
cars completely wrecked.
Trona spilled across the street.
The rear helpers were damaged, but Engineer Lawrence Hill and Brakeman Robert Waterbury
sustained only minor injuries.
They were fortunate.
Four people were killed: two children in one of the damaged houses were suffocated under
spilled trona, while Conductor Everett Crown and Brakeman Allan Riess were crushed inside
their locomotives.
Miraculously, the other crew were injured but survived.
The crash was witnessed by police officers who happened to be nearby, and immediately
called for further support.
The rescue effort continued all day until almost everyone had been accounted for.
The final trapped victim wasn’t pulled out until a full twelve hours after the crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board began an investigation.
They found that many of the wheels, even a full day later, were glowing blue with intense
heat.
The event data recorders from the destroyed locomotives were retrieved for further scrutiny.
While the investigation progressed, trains started running again four days after the
crash, with shocked and grieving residents attempting to return to their normal lives.
Thirteen days after the crash, however, a further disaster took place.
At 8:05am on the 25th of May, 1989, an underground pipeline at the crash site ruptured, releasing
a fountain of gasoline that fell on the local community, then ignited.
The San Bernardino Fire Department were called back to the scene, but there was little they
could do.
The fire was so intense that some firefighting equipment began to melt, even at a significant
distance from the fire.
The gasoline came from a pipeline operated by Calnev Pipeline.
It was fitted with emergency shut-off valves, but these failed to activate.
It took seven hours to control the rupture and extinguish the flames.
In that time, eleven more houses were destroyed, and two more people lost their lives.
The ongoing investigation now had another question to answer: had the crash contributed
to the subsequent pipeline rupture?
After much analysis, a conclusion was reached.
The derailment had been a result of the train’s weight being incorrectly calculated.
When yard clerk Thomas Blair estimated the weight of the train he made a gross miscalculation.
The hoppers were filled to their maximum capacity with trona, weighing 91,000 kilograms (or
100 tons) each, not 54,000 kilograms (or 60 tons) as he had estimated.
It was noted that, after the train had departed, a crew change took place at the yard.
The new dispatcher caught Mr Blair’s error, and changed it in the computer system, but
did not communicate with the crew on board the train.
Further to this, three sets of dynamic brakes on the train were completely non-functional,
though they made noises when activated that lead the crew to believe they were working.
In addition, the application of the emergency brakes automatically disabled the dynamic
brakes on all locomotives – a safety feature intended to stop the wheels locking up and
sliding.
This combination of factors had doomed the train.
Once it had crested the highest point of the pass, nothing could have been done to stop
it.
As for the pipeline rupture, investigators found tooth marks from heavy machinery on
the section that had ruptured.
This damage had likely been done during the cleanup operation.
The investigation cleared the engineers and yard clerk Thomas Blair of any fault, as they
had acted within reason.
The blame lay with Southern Pacific and Calnev.
Southern Pacific settled many claims out of court, and changed operating practices at
once.
When calculating incomplete weights it would now, by default, be assumed that hoppers were
filled to maximum capacity to ensure that enough braking power was put onto any given
train.
The Federal Railroad Administration, who had instated the safety feature that disabled
the dynamic brakes, quickly reversed this change.
Calnev also settled several claims out of court.
The land where Duffy Street once stood was made a no-build zone for many years.
Trains still run past the area where the disaster took place.
A memorial was also established by Southern Pacific employees further down the line in
memory of their two fallen coworkers.