Original subtitles

NARRATOR: A freight train is out of control.

Get on the phone.

Tell 'em we got a runaway train.

7551 to West Colton.

NARRATOR: It's brakes can't hold as it rockets down a mountain.

Mayday!

Mayday!

We're doing 90 miles an hour-- nine, zero.

NARRATOR: Now thousands of tons of steel and freight

are heading straight for a small city.

We're gonna die on that curve!

NARRATOR: An innocent mistake risks

the lives of everyone on board, and many more in the city

below.

WOMAN (ON INTERCOM): Ladies and gentlemen,

we are starting our approach.

We lost both engines.

MAN (ON RADIO): Mayday.

Mayday.

WOMAN: Brace for impact!

MAN: He's gonna crash!

NARRATOR: San Bernardino, California--

a quiet outer suburb at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains.

It's a great place to raise a family,

in between the emptiness of the Mojave Desert

and the bustle of Los Angeles.

When we had problems in the neighborhood,

we could go to one another.

And it was a very nice neighborhood.

NARRATOR: But in 1989, San Bernardino

is rocked by two disasters that killed six people.

18 houses are completely destroyed.

It begins with an out of control train.

60, 70, 80!

NARRATOR: And it ends with a raging fire.

MAN: You could see a huge cloud of black smoke in the air.

RUSSELL QUIMBY: The scene looked like Dante's Inferno.

NARRATOR: The disasters appear linked,

but they happened more than a week apart.

Investigators combed through the wreckage

to find the hidden connection.

Help!

Somebody help me!

NARRATOR: They uncover a series of shocking decisions,

which have deadly consequences for some

and scar a city forever.

Early morning, May 12, 1989--

on a railroad siding in the desert,

a freight train waits to head west over California's San

Gabriel Mountains.

Frank Holland is the chief engineer for Southern Pacific

freight train number 7551 East.

Well, my job as an engineer is to get on the train,

operate the locomotives, obey the rules, speeds,

slow down and restrictions, and get the train from point A

to point B.

NARRATOR: Holland's work on this trip

actually begins the night before at the Mojave Railyard.

Southern Pacific puts some trains

together here, with crews and engines to take

them across the country.

Holland begins by collecting the paperwork on his assignment.

Hey, Frank.

Hi.

NARRATOR: Holland was promoted to chief engineer

three years before.

OK.

Clearance form, train orders, train list,

and tonnage profile.

NARRATOR: The paperwork tells him

he's hauling 69 freight cars, each one weighing 60 tons.

Holland also learns that the cars are filled

with the same thing, trona, a nontoxic chemical used

in fertilizer.

So you start making your calculations on what kind

of horsepower you're gonna have to have to take

that train down that hill.

And that will tell you at what speed you can go.

Thanks.

Have a good one.

NARRATOR: All together, Holland's paperwork tells him

he's hauling more than 3,800 tons, more than eight

fully loaded jumbo jets.

The cargo's final destination is South America.

On this leg, Holland's taking it to the West Colton

terminal near Los Angeles.

To do that, he'll have to haul the cargo

up the San Gabriel Mountains and through the Cajon Pass.

Then he'll carefully slow his huge train

as it winds down the mountain.

OK, guys, we're going down to West Colton.

We've got 69 cars filled with trona.

NARRATOR: Everett Crown is the conductor of 7551.

He'll sit up in the front engine to assist Holland.

Alan Rice is the brakeman this morning.

He'll ride two engines back.

I'll be back at 3:00.

NARRATOR: Between them, the three men

have almost 50 years of experience working the trains

with Southern Pacific.

To make sure he has enough power to move his train up and down

the mountain, Holland has asked for a little assistance.

Southern Pacific dispatchers send him to helper engines.

Lawrence Hill is the engineer at the back.

Robert Waterbury is his brakeman.

While they've run this route before, it's not one

they normally work.

They don't know the weight of the cargo they're helping

to haul, and they don't ask.

7551 East now has four engines up front and two behind.

With the last two in place, the train is all set to go.

Helper calling head end.

Head end.

Coupled and ready to go.

Roger that.

NARRATOR: 7551 East slowly picks up speed.

In just an hour and a half it will

reach the top of the mountains-- the 3,700-foot Cajon Pass.

On the other side of the mountains,

the city of San Bernardino is slowly coming to life.

The Muscoy section is a fairly new development on the city's

northwestern edge.

It's filled with single-story homes and growing families.

Christopher Shaw is waking up at 2326 Duffy Street.

It's his mother's house.

But after a fight with his girlfriend,

he'd spent the night.

Across the street, Ruth Green has gotten three children

out of bed and off to school.

Her oldest daughter, Lavon is staying home.

It's just my daughter and I, and

we're just making ready for what we considered a normal morning.

We had had our breakfast and was straightening up

in the kitchen.

NARRATOR: This part of San Bernardino

sits right next to the train tracks.

Trains pass by on a levee almost 20 feet high.

Some of the houses on Duffy Street

back right up to the tracks.

Just after 7:00 AM, 7551 East reaches the highest point

of its trip, the Cajon Pass.

It's mostly downhill from here.

The railway pass helps keep Los Angeles connected

to the rest of the world.

It's one of only three ways to get through the mountains.

Dozens of trains rumble through it every day.

Traditionally in railroading, mountain railroaders

are respected as the big guys, the tough guys,

because they have the most demanding job.

Cajon Pass is one of the toughest mountain

passes for railroaders to deal with in the entire United

States.

So many trains go over it, and it is extremely

demanding, that everyone has to be on their toes 100%

all the time.

- No chance. - No?

No.

NARRATOR: Engineer Frank Holland and conductor Everett Crown

have the train running right on time.

They haven't had to communicate with the two men

at the back of the train since the trip began.

They've had no need to.

Everything's running smoothly.

Now comes the most critical part of the journey--

slowing the massive train as it starts down the mountain.

What we do when we run a train from the Mojave area to Colton

is basically we drive it off a cliff.

At that point, the track tips over and goes downhill

at a very steep grade, 2.2%.

And for trains, 2.2 feet down in every 100 feet

is like falling off a cliff.

NARRATOR: As 7551 East begins heading downhill,

the crew still believe it's a normal run.

What they don't know is that their train

has already out of control, and they have no way to stop it.

NARRATOR: May 12, 1989, just after 7:00 in the morning,

Southern Pacific freight train 7551 East

begins the long, slow descent from the top

of the San Gabriel Mountains.

The massive train is hauling 69 cars full of freight.

At the bottom of the hill--

the sleepy city of San Bernardino, California.

As the tracks start to dip downhill,

engineer Frank Holland applies his dynamic brakes.

They slow each of the six engines,

reducing the speed of the entire train.

He's only allowed to go 30 miles an hour through the pass.

He checks in with Lawrence Hill, the engineer in the helper

engine in the back of the train, to make

sure he can maintain his speed.

Calling the helper.

This is the helper.

You got all your dynamics?

Yeah, I'm in full.

NARRATOR: Holland starts applying his air brakes.

They put pressure on the wheels of each freight car.

The train is now traveling at 25 miles an hour.

That's exactly where Holland wants it to stay.

But as they leave the mountains, Holland's brakeman,

Everett Crown, notices that the train is picking up speed.

Frank, we're at 30.

We should be at 25.

NARRATOR: Confused, Holland continues to increase

the pressure on the air brakes.

But the train just keeps going faster.

FRANK HOLLAND (VOICEOVER): By the time it reached

40-miles-an-hour, I was very concerned

that the train was speeding.

NARRATOR: As the train approaches 45-miles-an-hour,

Holland turns his air brakes on full.

It doesn't help.

At the bottom of the hill, the track

bends around San Bernardino.

Holland knows he shouldn't take the turn

at more than 40-miles-an-hour.

Halfway down the incline, he's already going much faster.

Ruth Green's husband has left for work.

Her three youngest children are at school.

Across the street, Chris Shaw is just about to take a shower.

There are several houses in the way if the train comes off

the track.

FRANK HOLLAND: I'd been over that territory many times.

And, yeah, I knew that there was a curve coming down there

that we weren't gonna make.

NARRATOR: At the back of the train,

engineer Lawrence Hill also knows they're in trouble.

The air brakes are turned on full,

but the train isn't slowing down at all.

Something must be wrong up there.

NARRATOR: Without talking to the front of the train,

Hill slams on the train's emergency brakes.

It's their last chance.

The train, at that point, tried

to slow down a little bit.

A couple seconds later, it was off to the races.

It just took off like a rocket.

The speed was going up so fast I--

I couldn't even believe it.

NARRATOR: The emergency brakes don't work.

Smoke begins pouring out from under the train,

and it just keeps going faster.

60!

70!

80!

It stopped at 90, because that's as far

as the speedometer would go.

NARRATOR: 7551 East is still picking up speed.

I'm thinking, my god, I'm fired.

Actually, that's what I thought.

I'm just looking at everything that I've done.

I'm trying to go back and see where I had made

a mistake, what had happened.

7551 to West Colton!

7551 to West Colton!

MAN (ON RADIO): West Colton, go ahead.

We have a slight problem.

NARRATOR: At the back of the train,

engineer Lawrence Hill listens to the radio call.

ACTOR AS JOE STRAPAC (ON RADIO): I don't know if we

can get this train stopped.

NARRATOR: He breaks in, desperate to tell

the dispatcher how dangerous the situation is.

Mayday!

Mayday!

We're doing 90-miles-an-hour-- nine, zero!

Out of control.

Won't be able to stop till we hit Colton!

NARRATOR: But there's nothing the dispatcher can do.

The train is traveling at more than 100-miles-an-hour.

The houses of San Bernardino are just seconds away.

In the city below, a strange rumbling

breaks the morning calm.

RUTH GREEN: My house began to vibrate.

The house was rattling so hard I would

have thought that the windows would have broke.

It just got worse and worse.

By then, I realized it was the train.

As we were coming up to that curve, I looked over at Everett

and I said--

We're gonna die on that curve.

He-- wild eyed, like he was just couldn't believe,

and just scared to death.

And I'm sure I looked the same way.

All I knew is that I just put my feet up there and I said,

hang on.

Here we go.

I never expected to survive.

NARRATOR: Southern Pacific 7551 East as derailed tragically

in San Bernardino, California.

ACTOR AS LAWRENCE HILL (ON PHONE):

West Colton, AGYM's August dispatcher.

Please come in.

We're on the ground here between Dike and Stover.

Mayday!

Mayday!

NARRATOR: From the helper engine at the back of the train,

Lawrence Hill desperately calls the Southern

Pacific dispatcher.

He's been saved from injury, but he's not sure everyone

else has been so lucky.

ACTOR AS LAWRENCE HILL: SP 7551.

I haven't heard anything from the head end.

They may need some assistance.

We went on the ground!

NARRATOR: Incredibly, engineer Frank

Holland survives the wreck.

The man in charge of the train crawls

away from his ruined engine--

the first of the cars to derail.

Everett.

Where's Everett?

We got to get him.

He's still inside.

Let's get you down first.

NARRATOR: He's helped out of the train

by eyewitnesses to the disaster.

FRANK HOLLAND: When they pulled me off the locomotive

and set me down, it was just--

I just couldn't believe it.

The cars were just mangled.

The locomotives were destroyed.

It was just, you know, unbelievable devastation.

I looked back at that and I went, oh, my god.

What did I do?

NARRATOR: Frank Holland has broken several ribs.

One of his lungs is punctured.

The man who was riding with him, Everett Crown,

is soon found dead, as is Alan Rice, the brakeman who

was riding in the third engine.

Footage taken shortly after the crash shows

the scale of the disaster.

Seven houses have been destroyed,

as well as the train itself.

You could see just a twisted, jumbled mass of metal.

These cars are turned over.

You're really trying to grapple with what

is this, what's happened.

NARRATOR: Allen Simpson is a battalion chief with the San

Bernardino Fire Department.

The house that we focused on, with the information

that the mother gave us about one individual,

was totally obliterated.

You wouldn't recognize it as a house.

It looked like a jumble of somebody

going through it with a bulldozer.

They were hollering that there's

somebody still in there.

We later learned that that was where Chris Shaw lived.

And when you looked at that house,

it was like you would say there was no way

anybody could still be alive under all

of that rubble and wreckage.

NARRATOR: Deep below the wreckage

is another problem that could make the situation much worse.

Running alongside the railway, about six feet below ground,

is a fuel pipeline.

If it's been damaged in the derailment,

a single spark could cause a major explosion.

The thought's always in the back of your mind

if you have something like that.

This is major.

A 14-inch pipe full of pressurized fuel--

we knew what that's going to do if it ruptures.

NARRATOR: The pipeline is operated

by the Calnev Pipeline Company.

Calnev responds by draining hundreds of bottles of fuel

from the pipe to try to prevent an explosion.

But much more fuel remains behind.

Automatic safety valves that are supposed to shut off sections

of the pipeline aren't working.

The company can't completely drain

the area under the derailment.

Almost three hours after the crash,

rescue workers find the body of a small child.

He's the second young boy killed in the disaster.

Well, after we recovered the two children from the one

house, there wasn't a lot of hope for finding

anybody else at that point.

But you never give up hope.

You always keep trying.

But there's pressure to wind the search down.

Every moment spent looking for Chris Shaw

further delays the cleanup.

And Calnev can't check the pipeline properly

until the railcars are gone.

An entire neighborhood holds its breath.

12 hours later, night has fallen and Chris Shaw

is still missing.

George Avery, a firefighter for less than a year,

arrives for his shift at the crash site.

We were ordered to relieve the crews that were

trying to search for a body.

And, at that time, they thought it was a body recovery.

NARRATOR: Shaw is the last person in the neighborhood

still missing.

Workers ask his mother to draw a map of the house.

She tells them her son was in the bathroom

when the train derailed.

Workers concentrate their final search effort there.

GEORGE AVERY: There's pieces of the house itself sticking

out of this big potash mound.

So you have studs, and rafters, and roof covering.

So they gave me a specific area, so I

started removing the product.

And as I did so for--

it seemed like an eternity, but it was probably

an hour, an hour a half--

this void occurred and started to reveal

itself in front of me.

NARRATOR: As Avery reaches into the opening,

he feels something snag his jacket.

So then I immediately pulled it out, thinking it was

caught on a nail or whatever.

As I pulled it out and looked inside,

I saw this hand waving in front.

I found him!

I found him!

NARRATOR: It takes workers nearly an hour

and a half to free Chris Shaw from the wreckage.

Debris had formed a protective cocoon around him,

giving Shaw air to breathe, and keeping the jagged metal

from crushing him.

We were absolutely amazed that he lived, especially that long.

We're talking about most of the day.

Really didn't think he had much of a chance,

so when he came up out of there it was just stunning.

NARRATOR: With Shaw's rescue, every one in the neighborhood

and on the train is accounted for.

The crash of 7551 East into Duffy Street

has killed four, injured four more,

and destroyed seven homes.

Even with Shaw's rescue, San Bernardino's troubles

aren't over.

If the Calnev Pipeline has been damaged

it could explode at any time, destroying more homes

and taking more lives.

NARRATOR: Amid the looming threat of a gas explosion,

the investigation into the derailment begins.

William Pugh and Russell Quimby are with the National

Transportation Safety Board.

RUSSELL QUIMBY: By the time the team got out there,

it was fairly late and it was dark.

And the scene looked like Dante's Inferno.

A lot of wreckage, a lot of parts, still

particularly the brake parts wheels red

hot still after 12 hours.

The wheels had gotten so hot they'd literally

expanded off the axles.

NARRATOR: The friction between the wheels, the brakes,

and the tracks was so intense that the wheels themselves

began to liquefy, turning to molten steel as the train sped

down the hill.

Investigators know the train's brakes didn't work.

But why?

The next day, the cleanup begins.

First, Southern Pacific must remove its ruined train

so investigators can work and Calnev

can inspect its pipeline.

Two days later, Southern Pacific has moved all the cars.

But the ground is still covered with the train's cargo--

hundreds of tons of trona.

Calnev begins clearing the trona along the route

of the pipeline.

It's the quickest way to inspect the line,

and it keeps the heavy equipment away.

They made five or six excavations down

to the pipeline to visually look at the pipeline.

They felt comfortable that nothing had penetrated

to the depth of the pipeline.

NARRATOR: The fuel is under incredible pressure.

Any damage could lead to a massive leak

and possible explosion.

But Calnev finds nothing.

The depth of the pipe has shielded it

from the storm above.

The pipeline is a vital source of gas for Las Vegas, almost

200 miles away, as well as other civilian and military

customers in the desert.

There's pressure to get the gas moving again.

Just four days after the derailment,

Calnev restarts the pipeline.

It watches for any drop in pressure that could mean fuel

was escaping and there was a leak somewhere in the system.

But it holds.

The very same day, Southern Pacific

finishes its repairs on the damaged railway.

Trains once again move past San Bernardino.

But cleanup isn't quite finished, however.

The ash-like cargo of train 7551 East still litters the area.

Heavy machinery is used to dig it up and haul it away.

The huge machines could easily damage the pipeline,

so it is carefully marked with stakes.

RUTH GREEN: I told my husband one evening that I smelled gas.

But we had been reassured that they had inspected this line

and that there were no leaks.

I was at the accident site until it was finally

cleaned up, and there was a fence put around the area

and secured.

And it looked like everything was fine.

NARRATOR: Early morning, May 25--

it's been almost two weeks since 7551 East

derailed, slamming into San Bernardino.

But the cleanup was fast.

For more than a week, the trains,

and the fuel and a pipeline below,

have been running smoothly.

Then, from a clear sky, rain seems to fall.

Large sections of the neighborhood

are soaked by this peculiar shower.

Ruth Green is back in her house.

Then, for a second time in a month,

she's confronted with a horrifying sight.

RUTH GREEN: To the left of me, is far as I could see up,

down, or side to side, was nothing but a big wall of fire.

I got to the front door.

Neighbors were screaming, get out, get out.

I ran for my life.

NARRATOR: Once again, the fire department

responds to a major disaster on Duffy Street.

A tower of smoke and flame reaches more

than 300 feet into the sky.

Initially when we got in there we

were so close that the plastic lenses on the front

of the engine melted.

Several of the turn signals, part of the red lights melted.

There was an intense noise coming from this pipeline

where it had ruptured.

It sounded like a jet engine.

Deafening is how I would describe it.

And we dealt with that all day long.

NARRATOR: Local firefighters aren't the only ones

called back to the scene.

I got a call to report to the chairman's office.

I went down to the chairman's office, notified

that the pipeline blew up, and that I should

get my team together again.

NARRATOR: Once again, the pipeline operator Calnev can't

shut its emergency valves.

More than 500,000 gallons of fuel

burn over more than seven hours.

By the time the flames are out, two people are dead, three more

are injured, another 11 houses have been destroyed.

The residents of San Bernardino are in shock.

DWIGHT PLEDGER: They talked about the fact

that one of the people that died,

that all they really could find was their shoes

that were left in one spot.

And that-- you know, the mental picture of that,

it troubles you quite a bit.

After the fire, it was over for me.

I just-- I couldn't see myself living in the house anymore.

It really scared me just that bad.

NARRATOR: What people here will soon learn

is that all of the damage, pain, and suffering

was the result of a simple horrifying mistake.

NARRATOR: A small neighborhood in San Bernardino, California

has been devastated by two disasters.

In just 13 days, a train derailment and a gas explosion

have ripped through the area, killing six people.

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board

study both accidents.

From three of the engines on the wrecked train,

they recover black boxes.

And that records distance, speed, throttle position,

air brake pressures.

Then we try to figure out what speed

the train eventually got to.

NARRATOR: The black boxes reveal that 7551 East had reached

the incredible speed of 110-miles-per-hour,

far above the speed limit on the curve of 40-miles-an-hour.

Although engineers applied the train's brakes,

it continued to accelerate.

NARRATOR: How had the train raced so far out of control?

Almost all accidents are a chain of events that link

together to cause the accident.

Of course, any one point, if you'd broken that link,

you know, the accident wouldn't have occurred.

NARRATOR: Like other freight trains,

7551 East has two different systems to slow it down--

dynamic brakes and air brakes.

The air brakes push a block against the wheels

of each freight car.

The greater the pressure applied to the block,

the slower the train goes.

The investigators learned that the air

brakes were working properly as the train

started down the hill.

But as the train sped up, engineer Frank Holland kept

pressure on the air brakes.

The heat created became so intense that the brakes melted.

By the time of the crash, they were useless.

Next, the team turns to the dynamic brakes.

The dynamic brakes harness a magnetic field

created by the engine's main generator.

They reverse the magnetic field, which slows

the axles on the locomotive.

There were four engines at the front of the train

and two at the back.

Before beginning his trip, engineer Frank Holland

knew that his second engine wasn't working at all,

and that the dynamic brakes on his fourth engine

were only working sporadically.

Still, it was more than enough.

And we figured that with the units that we had on the head

end, and the two helpers that they gave us later

on, we could do 30-miles-an-hour down

that grade with no problem.

NARRATOR: When his train starts down the mountain,

Holland has it under control.

With the brakes he has, he should

be able to hold his speed.

But he can't.

The information from the black boxes is stunning.

The brakes in the third engine at the front of the train

didn't work at all as 7551 East gathered speed.

During the trip, Holland had checked with the brakeman

in the third engine.

Alan.

Yeah?

What are your dynamics like?

They're revving.

NARRATOR: But the black boxes show investigators

that even though the dynamic brakes

were making the noise they usually make,

they weren't working.

They weren't helping to slow the train at all.

And it gets worse.

Coupled and ready to go.

Roger that.

NARRATOR: Of the two engines added to the back of the train,

one didn't have any braking power either.

Lawrence Hill, the engineer at the back, knew it.

But he never told Frank Holland.

He didn't communicate to him that he had only

one locomotive at that dynamic.

The other one was out.

The helper engineer thought that the dispatcher

would notify the lead engineer.

NARRATOR: So when Holland asks Hill at the back of the train

if he has all of his dynamics, Hill says yes,

but he only means in the other one engine.

It's a startling discovery.

Holland doesn't have anywhere near the braking power

he thinks he does.

Investigators studying the black boxes

uncover one more secret of the train's terrifying ride

down the mountain.

Something must be wrong up there.

NARRATOR: When Lawrence Hill activated the emergency brakes,

he actually canceled out the dynamic brakes.

It's a safety feature to keep the wheels

from locking and the train from sliding down the tracks.

In this case, with the air brakes melting,

the dynamic brakes were the only way to hold the train back.

Activating the emergency brakes actually sped the train up.

And when the emergency brakes are applied, what happens

is that you lose your dynamic braking

and you've got a runaway train now.

NARRATOR: But Pugh is still puzzled.

According to all the paperwork, 7551 East was

hauling 3,800 tons of cargo.

At that weight, even with his crippled engines,

Holland should have been able to hold his speed

going down the mountain.

To find out why he couldn't, investigators

turn their attention to the days before the accident.

7551 East was pulling a shipment for Lake Minerals.

Five days before the trip began, the company's superintendent

drops off the paperwork with Southern Pacific.

The paperwork should describe what's in the shipment

and how much it weighs.

Thanks.

NARRATOR: In this case, though, the weight is not filled in.

Lake Minerals believes each of the cars

is filled to the maximum, 100 tons.

But Thomas Blair needs to enter a weight in the computer

or the train won't be able to leave.

Blair has been working with Southern Pacific for 17 years.

He's seen thousands of freight cars leave his yard.

He makes an educated guess that the material in each train car

weighs 60 tons.

It's a tragic miscalculation.

Every car on 7551 East is actually carrying 40

more tons than Blair estimates.

Across 69 cars, the train is 2,700 tons

heavier than anyone thinks--

a difference of more than five fully-loaded jumbo jets.

It was dramatically wrong.

I mean, that was only 2/3 of the weight of that train.

That train was doomed, and we just didn't know it.

NARRATOR: Frank Holland was in trouble before his trip began.

Even if all of his engines were working,

it would have been a difficult trip down the mountain.

With all of the problems he had, he

simply didn't have the power to slow his enormous train down.

Crashing into San Bernardino was all but

inevitable from the beginning.

The wreck of 7551 East was a preventable disaster.

Investigators are about to discover

that the explosion which followed

didn't have to happen either.

The fuel pipeline was six feet underground.

In the days after the derailment,

Calnev examines it closely.

They can't find a single dent or crack where the train

had broken through the earth.

The crash hadn't seemed to weaken the pipeline.

They started operating and brought

it up to about 1,600 pounds.

And all of the pressure readings at various places along

the pipeline looked normal.

NARRATOR: Since the derailment itself

didn't cause the rupture, investigators

continue their search.

They study the pipeline for clues.

Even though the fire burned for hours,

the piece of pipe that burst has not been destroyed.

CHARLIE BATTEN: When the pipe opened up,

it caused a rupture in the pipe that was sort of what we'd

term as a fish mouth shape.

And at the widest area it was about 4 inches wide,

and it was about 2 and 1/2 feet long.

NARRATOR: Near the spot where the pipe ruptured,

investigators find dents and several deeper gouges.

The marks are like wounds on a murder victim.

The NTSB determined that the damage to the pipeline

was done during one of two phases--

either the cleanup of the train wreckage or it

was done during the time in which the trona

was being cleaned up after the train

wreckage had been removed.

NARRATOR: Two mistakes resulted in a pair

of disasters for San Bernardino, and the death of six people.

In its final report the NTSB doesn't blame Frank Holland,

saying his belief that he had enough braking

power to stop the train was perfectly reasonable.

Holland still rides the rails, but he's

never made the trip down the San Gabriel Mountains again.

Psychologically, I just don't think I could take it.

I don't think I could relive that.

Every time I went down, I would relive it.

And I choose not to do that.

It would just be too painful.

NARRATOR: Calnev, the pipeline operator,

was criticized for not checking the pipe after the cleanup

operations were finished.

It settled lawsuits related to the disaster out of court.

Thomas Blair, who incorrectly estimated the train's weight,

was never charged.

But after the disaster, Southern Pacific changed its rules

so that every freight car without a specified weight

was assumed to be carrying its maximum allowable load.

Southern Pacific also settled a number

of lawsuits out of court.

Its operations are now part of Union Pacific Railroad.

Trains continue to run past San Bernardino,

but many of the families caught up in the disaster moved away.

Trains were still coming down out of Cajon Pass.

And so a person couldn't help but go-- in their mind

go to where what if that this thing could happen again.

NARRATOR: Houses beside the tracks

were removed, leaving an ugly scar of land.

There is no monument to mourn the dead

or to mark the day when disaster came to Duffy Street.