Train Derailment
On May 12, 1989, at 7:36 a.m. a 6-locomotive/69-car Southern Pacific freight train (SP 7551 East, computer symbol 1 MJLBP-11) carrying trona lost control while descending Cajon Pass, derailed on an elevated curve, and plowed into a residential area on Duffy Street. The location is just Northeast of where the 210 Foothill Freeway crosses the Cajon creek wash.
The conductor, head-end brakeman, and two residents were killed in the crash. Seven houses immediately next to the tracks were destroyed, as were the lead locomotives and all of the freight cars on the train. 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 non-functional dynamic brakes, and there was not enough dynamic braking power to slow the train down the hill, causing the locomotives to lose control of the cars. While the helper engineer realized that the brakes were not slowing the train, in desperation he activated the emergency brakes, which actually sped the train up as the engineer did not realize that the emergency brakes automatically deactivated the dynamic brakes. The train reached speeds of about 110 mph before derailing on an elevated 35 mph 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, smashing them to pieces.
After retrieving the black boxes from the locomotives, it was discovered that third head end locomotive's dynamic brakes were not functioning at all, despite the fact that it was making the sound that dynamic brakes make. It was also discovered after the crash that the engineer running the helper engines knew of the faulty brakes on one of his locomotives and did not communicate the information to the head end. The combination of weight miscalculation, poor communication, and faulty brake equipment made the freight cargo heavier than the locomotives could slow, causing the freight cars to push the locomotives down the hill and rapidly gain speed, and the curve next to Duffy Street was simply too sharp for the extremely high speed of the train, catapulting it off the rails and straight forward rather than following the curve of the tracks.
Read more about this topic: San Bernardino Train Disaster
Famous quotes containing the word train:
“Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.”
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)