Western Railroad Discussion > Dunsmuir spill 20 year anniversary

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/assignment_7&id=8126390

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

Hard to believe its been 20 years.
Thats one ugly bridge nowadays
but I guess its for the best?

Gary

Watched the news article on Ch 7/20 a couple of nights ago. Interesting to see the comparisons from then and now. People are paying a great deal more attention to the waste, run-off and general Haz Mat issues these days. The River certainly appears to have recovered nicely, but there is still a lot of oversight going on. seems like it's been a combination of not doing dumb things and then letting the river recover.

The article also tried feature the health of Dunsmuir itself, they missed a few issues. They seem to have focused on the footage that they had and showing how clever they can be by following up 20 yrs later.

City: http://ci.dunsmuir.ca.us/

What's a Dunsmuir: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunsmuir,_California

Chamber of Commerce: http://dunsmuir.com/index.php

events calender: http://dunsmuir.com/events.php

example of recent news events: http://www.krcrtv.com/news/27882942/detail.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/11 13:21 by TCnR.

I happened to be working in Scott Valley that day just south of Etna and saw a huge increase in truck and passenger car traffic caused by the I-5 closure and the rerouting to Hwy 3 through Weaverville and Yreka. Our crew knew this was strange but didn't find out the reason until tuning into the local radio station. It is hard to believe all this happened 20 years ago. The Canterra Loop is indeed a beautiful section of the Sacramento River that can be seen during daylight hours on the Northbound #14 Coast Starlight this time of year.
Mike Bureau

I caught the wreck train where we had to pick up the tank car and take it to Black Butte on a flat. The EPA guy was a jerk, trying to order the Conductor around. We just told him to go and talk to the Superintendent. Then we did what we were instructed by our boss.

Then the tank on the flat car was moved to the one spot in K Falls and stored in the back for years.

In 3 months you would cross the bridge grinding up the hill and see big old trout sitting in the water as if nothing happened.


Nudge

The remarkable return of trout and other wildlife is a comfort, knowing "mother nature" is quite resilient. It was explained to me that the fish upstream from the site rather quickly began venturing downstream and re-populating the lower reaches of the river.

I once visited the Oil City & Titusville Ry. in Oil City, PA. This valley was drenched with spilled petroleum in the late 1880s, an uglier scene could hardly be imagined. Today it is all green and filled with wildlife. Not that I advocate tolerating contaminating the water or soil, but sometimes it is not quite as terrible as the EPA and their legal staff make it out to be.

I remember watching some young female reporter-ett interview some SP official spokesman about the spill. At one point he said that although the spill damage looks bad now, nature has a way of rebounding in short time. The reporter said, "What do you mean? You've [Southern Pacific] destroyed the river and the environment forever. I remember two years later the Fish & Game dept. reported the enviorment was back to near normal and fish population was near record numbers.

Tony J.

The river was just awesome this past weekend when I hiked from Cantara to Shasta Retreat with Bob Church. Always amazed how beautiful the canyon is and what an amazing place to build a RR.

1) Cantara Plaque at loop
2) Jungle Jim guardrail at bridge (I was standing above the spot the tank car sat after derailment)
3) Kayak's enjoying the river at Mossbrae Falls (Class 4 and 5 rapids are above Catara below the dam)

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It seems like the permanent damage was to the SP. I'm not sure they ever recovered from the financial hit.

Proving that most reporters are idiots.

daylightdon Wrote:
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> It seems like the permanent damage was to the SP.
> I'm not sure they ever recovered from the
> financial hit.


Uh, not related. They did have a pretty big hit from the PR, also that Duffy street runaway. The SP finances were not healthy, for the RR anyways. It's a pretty big story that we dance around on this site. The Mad Dog Chronicles, in the TO archives, are a really good source of life on the SP, but there's lot's of titles. It's pretty well understood that the failed Santa Fe merger stripped the SP of any Financial future.

The Nolte article/Obit for Biaggini was a very good peek at what was happening to the moderne SP.

By 1991 the old SP was gone and this accident was due to the decisions made in Denver.

Was the General Office's still in SF at the time? I seem to remember hearing about it during one of those morning discussions on the PBx.

But I don't know how and when, or just don't remember, the Denver influence came over the SP. All the D&RGW fans claimed it was the SP taking over the RG.

TCnR Wrote:
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> Was the General Office's still in SF at the time?
> I seem to remember hearing about it during one of
> those morning discussions on the PBx.
>
> But I don't know how and when, or just don't
> remember, the Denver influence came over the SP.
> All the D&RGW fans claimed it was the SP taking
> over the RG.

What did they say on the SP Pbx was the cause?

As I remember they didn't have any idea at that time, just mentioned stringlining and dumping into the river in broad terms, they respectfully said it looked bad. I remember early discussions about the train getting turned around as it went through Roseville, East Valley vs West Valley. I think one of two of those folks may be active subscribers today.

Outside of the G.O. conversations, there have been reports that the CDF did not know how to get into the site, general confusion about the spill moving down the river, not being able to assess the situation until daylight. The G.O. office or anybody else would not have known much else by the morning. I was in the SF Area at the time, went for the TV coverage but that didn't really catch up for a while. The money shot was the chemical color moving down the river. One of the SF papers had interesting info and maps, I think I saved a few of the pages.

> -----
> > Was the General Office's still in SF at the
> time?
> > I seem to remember hearing about it during one
> of
> > those morning discussions on the PBx.
> >

>
> What did they say on the SP Pbx was the cause?

What's the ostensible function of the bridge augmentation?
...Lorenzo

567Chant Wrote:
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> What's the ostensible function of the bridge
> augmentation?
> ...Lorenzo


None if the derailment goes off the outside of the curve.

Poor train makeup from Roseville was the cause. 5 heavy loads on the rear of a empty train. Poor locomotive conditions. One was kicking on and off line rear the curve. When the power was into the curve. one kicked back on causing a power sturge which pulled the head end portion of the train off the tracks

WAF Wrote:
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> Poor train makeup from Roseville was the cause. 5
> heavy loads on the rear of a empty train. Poor
> locomotive conditions. One was kicking on and off
> line rear the curve. When the power was into the
> curve. one kicked back on causing a power sturge
> which pulled the head end portion of the train off
> the tracks

Train makeup and power use and distribution changes orchestrated by Denver.

JLY Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> WAF Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Poor train makeup from Roseville was the cause.
> 5
> > heavy loads on the rear of a empty train. Poor
> > locomotive conditions. One was kicking on and
> off
> > line rear the curve. When the power was into
> the
> > curve. one kicked back on causing a power
> sturge
> > which pulled the head end portion of the train
> off
> > the tracks
>
> Train makeup and power use and distribution
> changes orchestrated by Denver.

True