Original subtitles

a freight train is out of control get on

the phone tell them we got a Runway

train 7551 to West Colton its brakes

can't hold it as it Rockets down a

mountain mayday mayday we're doing 90

now thousands of tons of steel and

Freight are heading straight for a small

town

we're going to die on that

curve an innocent mistake risks the

lives of everyone on board and many more

in the town

below we're not getting any we have

thein

alarm3 we are in an

[Music]

emergency

[Music]

San Bernardino California a quiet

Suburban town 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 Buel of Los

Angeles when we had problems in the

neighborhood we could go to one another

and it was a very nice

neighborhood but in 1989 San Bernardino

is rocked by two disasters six people

are killed 18 houses are completely

destroyed it begins with an outof

control train

60 70

80 and ends with a raging fire you see a

huge cloud of black smoke in the air the

scene looked like Dante's

Inferno the disasters appear linked but

they happen more than a week apart

investigators comb through the wreckage

to find the hidden

connection somebody help me they uncover

a series of shocking decisions which

have deadly consequences for some and

Scar a town

forever

[Music]

early morning May the 12th

1989 on a railroad siding in the desert

a freight train waits to head up 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 um obey the rules RS speeds

slow down at restrictions and get the

train from point A to point

B his work on this trip actually began

the night before at the Mojave Rail Yard

some of Southern Pacific's freight

trains are put together here picking up

Crews and engines to take them across

the

country Holland is here to collect the

paperwork he'll need for the

journey hey Frank he Holland was

promoted to chief engineer 3 years

before okay clearance form drain orders

train list and tonage

profile his paperwork tells him he's

hauling 69 Freight cars each one

weighing

54,4 31 kilos Holland also learns that

the cars are all filled with the same

thing Trona it's a non-toxic chemical

used in

fertilizer

so you you start making your

calculations on what kind of horsepower

you're going to 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 Al together Holland's paperwork

tells him he's hauling more than 3 and2

million kilos of cargo more than 10

jumbo

Jets the cargo's final destination is

South America today Holland's only

taking it as far as 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 kahone

pass then he'll carefully slow his huge

train as it winds down the

[Music]

mountain hey guys we going down to West

Colton we got 69 cars filled with Trona

Everett Crown is the conductor of

7551 he'll sit up in the front engine to

assist Holland Alan Reese is the

Breakman this morning he'll ride two

engines back back 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 two helper engines

Lawrence Hill is the engineer at the

back Robert Waterbury is his

Breakman while they've run this route

before it's not where 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

7551 East slowly gathers steam in just

an hour and a half it'll reach the top

of the mountains the 1300 M High kahone

Pass helper to head in head in we've

cleared the siding thank

you

[Music]

on the other side of the mountains the

town of San Bernardino is slowly coming

to

[Music]

life the Muscoy section is a fairly new

development on the Northwestern edge of

the town it's filled with singl 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

succeeded in getting three children out

of bed and off to school her only

daughter leavon 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 one of the only things people

don't like about this part of San

Bernardino is the train tracks trains

Race by on top of a 6 M High

Levy some of the houses on Duffy Street

back right up to the tracks when the

homes went up for

sale the realator was showing my husband

a home that was on the same side of the

street as the tracks the tracks would

have been behind our home and he said no

he didn't want

[Music]

that just after 700 a.m. 7551 East

reaches the highest point of its trip

the kahone pass it's all downhill from

here the pass is a vital rail link

between Los Angeles and the rest of the

world it's one of only three ways to get

through the mountains dozens of trains

Rumble through here every day

traditionally in railroading Mountain

railroaders are respected as the big

guys the tough guys because they have

the most demanding job kahone 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 CH no no engineer Frank Holland

and conductor Everett Crown have the

train right on

time there hasn't been any communication

between the men at the front and the two

men at the back of the train since the

trip began there's been no need

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 two feet down in

every 100 ft is like falling off a

cliff as 7551 East begins heading

downhill the crews still believe it's a

normal run what they don't know is that

their train is already out of control

and they have no way to slow it

down May the 12th

1989 just after 7 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 town of San Bernardino

California as the tracks start dipping

downhill engineer Frank Holland first

applies his Dynamic brakes they slow

each of the six engines reducing the

speed of the entire train he's only

allowed to go 48 kmers an hour through

the pass he checks in with Lawrence Hill

the engineer and the helper engine at

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 Roger

that

the first part of the downhill run

twists back and forth 56 times the

friction from the turns helps slow the

mammoth

train even with the turns Holland starts

applying his air brakes they put

pressure on the wheels of each freight

car the train is now traveling at 40 km

an hour that's exactly where Holland

wants it to

stay

[Music]

once through the curves though Holland's

Breakman Everett Crown notices that the

train is picking up

speed Frank we're at

30 should be a

[Music]

25 the the train actually was

maintaining its speed it might have been

picking up just a little bit but we

still had a long way to

go it's

creeping confused Holland continues to

increase the pressure on the air brakes

but the train just keeps going

faster by the time it reached 40 mil an

hour I was very concerned

the train was uh

speeding as the train approaches 72 km

an hour Holland turns his air brakes on

full but it doesn't

help at the bottom of the hill the track

bends around the town of San Bernardino

Frank Holland knows he's not supposed to

go more than 64 km an hour around the

corner partway down the hill he's

already going much faster than

that Ruth Green's husband has left for

work her three youngest children are off

to

school across the street Chris Shaw is

just about to take a

shower engineer Frank Holland knows

there are several houses that are right

in the way if his train comes off the

track I've been over that territory many

times and yeah I knew that there was a

curb coming down there that we weren't

going to

make 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

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 uh I couldn't even

believe

it the emergency brakes haven't worked

smoke begins pouring out from underneath

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 but Holland knows 7551 East is still

picking up

speed I'm thinking my God I'm

fired actually that's 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 we're trying to get a hold

of the train dispatcher and he won't

answer the train is out of control and

they can't tell anyone about it at that

point we're just kind of out there by

ourselves try that phone again

7551 to West

colon West colon go ahead we have a

slight

problem at the back of the train

engineer Lawrence Hill listens to the

radio call I don't know if we can get

this train stopped he breaks in

desperate to tell the dispatcher how

dangerous the situation is mayday mayday

we're doing 90 mph 90 out of control

won't be able to stop till we hit Colton

but there's nothing the dispatcher can

do the train is traveling at more than

160 km an hour the houses of San

Bernardino are just seconds

away down in the town a strange rumbling

breaks the morning

calm 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 going to die on that curve he um

wild

dyed 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 I just put my feet up

there and I said hang on here we go and

never expected to survive

a

West

Colton AG ym sest dispatcher please come

in we're on the ground here between Dyke

and Stover mayday mayday in the helper

engine at the back of the train engineer

Lawrence Hill desperately calls the

Southern Pacific dispatcher

being at the end of the train has saved

him from injury but he's not sure

everyone else has been so lucky sp

7551 anybody please come in it takes

more than a minute for Hill to get a

response to his frantic

call sagus dispatcher 7551 East over

sagus dispatcher we are all over the

ground here I haven't heard anything

from the

headend they may need some assistance

we went on the

ground 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 ever where's ever we got to get

him he's still inside let's get you down

first he's helped out of the Train by

eyewitnesses to the disaster

and they pulled me off the locomotive

and set me down it was just I I just

couldn't believe it the cars were just

mangled the locomotives were destroyed

it was just in know unbelievable

Devastation I looked back at that and I

went oh my

God what did I

[Music]

do 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 Reese the Breakman who

was riding in the third

[Music]

engine footage taken shortly after the

crash shows the scale of the disaster

seven houses have been destroyed the

train itself is a write off as the dust

cleared then you you could see some of

the cars had you know toppled over you

could see that it looked like you know

some houses were gone 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

[Music]

Alan Simpson is a battalion chief with

the San Bernardino fire

department the house that we focused on

with the information that uh the mother

gave us about one individual was totally

obliterated you wouldn't have recognized

it as a house it looked like a jumble of

somebody gone through it with a

bulldozer they were hollering that

there's somebody still in there we let

later learned that that was where Chris

Shaw lived and when you looked at that

house it was like You' say there is no

way anybody could still be alive under

all of that rubble and wreckage the

wreckage is also hiding an explosive

problem no one in the neighborhood knew

about running alongside the railway

about 2 M below the ground is a pipeline

carrying fuel back up the

mountain if it's been damaged in the

derailment a single spark could cause a

major

explosion prior to this incident we were

not aware that this pipeline existed and

ran directly behind our homes the

thought's always in the back of your

mind if you have something like that

this is Major 14in pipe full of

pressurized fuel we know what that's

going to do if it ruptures the pipeline

is operated by the calev pipeline

company it pulls hundreds of barrels of

fuel from the pipe trying to reduce the

size of any potential

explosion but much more fuel remains

behind automatic safety valves in the

pipeline that are supposed to shut off

individual sections aren't working the

company can't completely drain the area

under the

derailment almost 3 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 uh there wasn't a lot

of Hope for finding anybody else at that

point but you never give up hope you 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 cnv can't check the pipeline

properly until the rail cars are gone an

entire neighborhood holds its breath is

there any chance Shaw could possibly

have lived through the disaster

Southern Pacific train 7551 East has

crashed into sand Bernardino California

four people are dead and an entire

neighborhood has been evacuated a gas

pipeline under the wreck hasn't been

checked

[Music]

yet Chris Shaw was in one of the houses

destroyed when the Train

derailed 12 hours later he's still

missing

George Avery a firefighter for less than

a year takes 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 Shaw is the last person in the

neighborhood still to be accounted

for 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 there's pieces of the house itself

sticking out of this big potach 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 hour and a

half

this void occurred and started to uh

reveal itself in front of

me as ay 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

help

somebody help

[Applause]

me it takes workers nearly an hour and a

half to pull Chris from the wreckage Deb

from the train had formed a protective

cocoon around him it gave Shaw Air to

breathe and kept 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 with Shaw's rescue everyone in

the neighborhood and on the train has

been found the wreck of 7551 East has

killed four people injured four more and

totally destroyed seven

[Music]

houses even with Shaw's rescue San

Bernardino's troubles aren't over yet if

the calv pipeline has been damaged it

could explode at any time destroying

more homes and taking more

[Music]

lives with that threat hanging over the

neighborhood the search for the cause of

the derailment begins William Pew and

Russel Quimby are with the national

Transportation safety

board by the time the team got there was

fairly late and it was dark and uh the

scene looked like Dante's Inferno a lot

of wreckage a lot of parts still uh

particularly the break parts Wheels red

hot still after 12 hours Wheels had

gotten so hot theyd literally uh

expanded off the

axles 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 couldn't slow it

down but

why the next day cleanup operations

begin Southern Pacific needs to clear

its ruined train from the area it's the

only way investigators can work and

calnev can check its

pipeline Southern Pacific has all of the

cars moved 2 days later but the ground

is still covered with 7551 east's cargo

hundreds of tons of

Trona calv 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 the depth

of the

pipeline the fuel is under incredible

pressure any damage could lead to a

massive leak and possible

explosion but calv 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 320 kmet

away it supplies both civilian and

Military customers in the desert

there's pressure to get the gas moving

again there were a number of people in

the community that thought it should not

be open and supposedly people in Las

Vegas had said that they had cars that

were worth more than our homes on Duffy

Street and so fire up the

[Music]

pipeline Just 4 days after the

derailment the pipeline is

restarted calev watches for any drop in

pressure it would mean fuel was escaping

that there was a leak somewhere in the

system but it

[Music]

holds the very same day Southern Pacific

finishes its repairs on the damaged

railway trains are once again moving

past San

Bernardino the cleanup isn't quite

finished though more of the ashlight

cargo of train 7551 East is littered

across the area heavy machinery comes in

to dig it up and haul it away the huge

machines could easily damage the

pipeline so it's carefully marked with

Stakes I told my husband one evening

that I smelt 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

[Music]

fine early morning May the 25th it's

been almost 2 weeks since 7551 East

derailed slamming into San

Bernardino but the cleanup was fast for

more than a week the trains and the fuel

in a pipeline Below have been running

[Music]

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

when for the second time in a month

she's confronted with a horrifying sight

to the left of me as 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

once again the fire department responds

to a major disaster on Duffy

[Music]

Street as we're getting the call and

getting on the rig and opening the door

there was no doubt in my mind what that

was you could see a huge column of smoke

and Flame and I knew immediately it had

to be the

pipeline a tower of smoke and Flame

reaches more than 100 met 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

the turn signals uh part of the uh red

lights melted there is a intense noise

coming from this pipeline where it had

ruptured it sounded like a jet

engine deafening is how I would describe

it and uh we dealt with that all day

long local firefighters aren't the only

ones called back to the scene I got a

call report to the Chairman's office I

went down to the Chairman's office

notified that the pipeline blew up and I

I should get my team together again the

area looked more or less like a war zone

where a lot of damage a lot of fire

damage had been done uh houses in the

area were uh

insinuated once again calev which runs

the pipeline can't shut its emergency

valves almost 2 million lers of fuel

burn for more than 7

[Music]

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 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 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 what people here will soon learn is

that all of the damage pain and

suffering is the result of of a simple

horrifying

mistake 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

[Music]

people investigators with the national

Transportation safety board study both

accidents with the train crash they

focus on black boxes which were

recovered from three of the

engines and that records uh distance

speed uh throttle position air brake

pressures uh that we tried to figure out

what speed the train eventually got to

it exceeded the

graph the black boxes reveal that 7551

East had probably reached the incredible

speed of 177 kmph before

derailing the speed limit on the curve

was just over 60 km an hour although the

Train's brakes had been applied it

continued

accelerating how had the train become so

out of

control almost all accidents are a chain

of events that link together caused the

accident of course any one point if

you'd broken that length you know the

accident would have

occurred like other freight trains 7551

East has two different systems to slow

it

down Dynamic

brakes and air

brakes 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 investigators learned that the air

brakes were working properly as the

train started down the hill

as the train sped up though engineer

Frank Holland maintained pressure on the

air brakes the heat created by the

brakes became so intense that they

melted by the time of the crash they

were

useless the team turns its focus 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 mph down that grade

with no

problem 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 Frank we're at 30 it should be at

25 it's

creeping what the NTSB investigators

discover from the black boxes is

stunning the brakes on the third engine

at the front of the train didn't work at

all as 7551 East gathered

speed during the trip Holland had even

checked with the brakman in the third

engine

Alan yeah what are you Dynamics like

they're revving 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 slow the

train down at all

but it gets

worse coupled and ready to go 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 a dynamic the

other one was out the helper engineer

thought that the dispatcher would notify

the lead engineer calling the helper

this is the helper you got all your

Dynamics yeah I'm in full 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 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

[Music]

mountain something must be wrong up

there when Lawrence Hill pulled 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

only thing holding the train

back putting the emergency brakes on

actually sped the train

up when the emergency brakes are applied

what happens is you lose your Dynamic

braking and you got a runaway train

now but Pew is still puzzled according

to all the paperwork 7551 East was

hauling 32 million kilos of cargo at

that weight even with his crippled

engines Polland should have been able to

hold his speed going down the

mountain to find out why he couldn't

investigators turned their attention to

the days before the

accident 7551 East was pulling a

shipment for Lake

minerals 5 days before the trip began

the company's superintendent drops off

the proper paperwork with Thomas Blair

who works for Southern Pacific

the paperwork outlines what's in the

shipment and normally how much it

weighs

[Music]

thanks in this case though the weight

was not filled in Lake minerals believed

each of the cars was filled to its

maximum 990,000

kilos

hey

hey since the that's what the company

expected Lake minerals didn't think

there was any reason to put the number

down but Blair knows that to fill out

the proper computer forms he'll need to

have a wait or the train won't be able

to leave the train

yard 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 car on the train weighs

54,000 kilos

but Blair's guess is a tragic

miscalculation every single freight car

on 7551 East is actually carrying 36,000

kilos more material than he estimated

across 69 cars it means that the train

is actually more than six jumbo Jets 2

and2 million kilos heavier than anyone

thinks it is nobody caught the fact that

the weights were way under train orders

train lists and tonage profile from then

on uh the engineer had a profile a train

It showed 6,100 tons can I'll be back in

threee okay he operated that way and it

was wrong it was dramatically wrong I

mean that was only 2third of the weight

of that train that train was doomed and

we just didn't know

it 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 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

[Music]

in May of 1989 twin disasters shatter

the town of San Bernardino

California a train derailment and a gas

line explosion kill six people and

Destroy more than a dozen

houses investigators comb through the

Ashes to learn how the two events are

linked the pipeline L was 2 M below

ground and in the days after the

derailment calnev examined it closely

they couldn't find a single Dent or

crack where the train had broken through

the Earth the train crash hadn't seemed

to weaken the

pipeline and when gas began pumping

through the pipe there was no loss of

pressure no warning sign of a

problem they started operating and

brought it up to about, 1600 100 lb and

all of the pressure readings at various

places along the pipeline look

normal 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 when the pipe opened up it

caused a rupture in the pipe that was

sort of what we term as a fishmouth

shape and at the widest area it was

about 4 in wide and it was about 2 1/2

ft

long like forensic investigators the

NTSB looks for a Telltale fingerprint

that will help them discover how the

pipe

broke near the spot where the pipe

ruptured investigators find D and

several deep per

gouges the marks are like wounds on a

murder victim if investigators can find

out what caused the marks they'll

discover what caused the pipeline to

burst we knew that uh there were

deposits of hardened steel left in the

gouges we knew that whatever piece of

equipment had damaged the pipe had teeth

on it that were were uh hardened

steel there are several possible

suspects a number of front-end loaders

and one large back ho used during the

cleanup all had hardened steel teeth but

baton can never pinpoint the

blame well the

ntsp determined that the damage to the

pipeline was done during one of two

phases either the clean up 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 two mistakes resulted in a pair

of disasters for San

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Bernardino and the death of six

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people in its final report on the

disasters the NTSB doesn't blame Frank

Holland saying his belief that he had

enough Breaking 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 I don't think I could

relive that every time I went down I

would relive

it and uh I I choose not to do that it'

just be too

painful calev the company that operated

the pipeline was called to account for

not checking it after the cleanup

operations were

completed lawsuits against the company

were settled out of

court kelev in hindsight I think would

agree that uh they should have been much

more thorough in their inspection they

got comfortable with what they saw and

they made an assessment without adequate

information that it was an undamaged

Pipeline and okay to

operate Thomas BL who incorrectly filled

in the paperwork 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 the

company no longer exists it was bought

out years after the

disaster

trains continue to run past San

Bernardino but many of the families

involved in the disaster moved away

trains were still coming down out of

kahol pass and so a person couldn't help

but go and their mind go to where what

if that this thing could happen

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again houses aren't allowed beside the

tracks

anymore all that's left is an ugly scar

of

land there's no Monument here to mourn

those who

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died or to Mark the day when disaster

came to Duffy

Street