Nostalgia & History > SP earthquake derailment continued

Here are a few more shots of that derailment west of Ellwood in August of 1978.

1 - Extra 7605 West waiting at Santa Barbara before the quake. The two other units are the 8695 and the 4437 with about 65 cars behind them.
2 - Near the rear of the train and the derailed cars. They at least spared the signal. Hollister Avenue overpass over Highway 101 can be seen in the background. That's also one of those all orange reefers for Harry. You'll see the end of it in an upcoming post.
3 - SP Roadmaster, Mr. Mahon arriving to check out the damage. Looking east.

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1 - Mr. Mahon inspecting the damage.
2 - more of the derailed cars caused by the earthquake kink in the rail. Still looking east.

Some more photos of the scene several days later to follow soon.

C.C.Chas.

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Interesting series...Note the (Lack of) traffic on the 101...Steve

Not much traffic? Remember this is back about 28 years. There wasn't that much traffic at this location as it was past all the big population area west of Santa Barbara. Maybe I should say at that time. Haven't been there in a number of years, so not sure if this area has houses in it by now......................... C.C.Chas.

At that time the freeway bypass wasn't built through Santa Barbara and on 101 you had to navigate a series of traffic signals. Traffic on 101 wasn't too bad then.

Todd

Very interesting, so the Northridge earthquake wasn't the only one that caused an SP Freight to go on the ground on the Coast line!

ProAmtrak Wrote:
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> Yeah, what was it on the Ritcher Scale.


pretty sure it was a lot harder to measure these quakes back then but by a stroke of good luck timing there seems to be some accurate data available online for this specific 08.13.78 quake. Different sites seem to measure this one main large quake as a magnitude 5.1 to a 5.7 earthquake. It was centered RIGHT OFF the Santa Barbara beaches with aftershocks taking place between downtown SB and UCSB. Interesting to note that four brand new seismographs were installed the DAY BEFORE this quake real close to the epicenter!

( snip from http://www.data.scec.org/chrono_index/santab78.html )

"This quake and its aftershocks would have been more poorly located had it not been for an amazing coincidence -- four new seismographs were installed in the area near the epicenter just one day before the earthquake happened! From the data gathered, there is reason to suspect that this quake occurred on a shallow, north-dipping decollement underneath the Santa Barbara area."


Hey, while we are on the subject, when did the Richter Scale come about in use in history?


more info on this 08.13.78 SB quake at:

http://www.crustal.ucsb.edu/ics/outreach/sb_eqs/1978/1978.html


-Ryan aka "espeeboy"
on the ex-WP Oakland Sub MP11.2

That last picture is certainly very dramatic as to the damage an earthquake can cause. As I live in the eastern part of the country, these pictures certainly give one a sense of the severe damage that can be done.

Jim

Chooch Wrote:
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> That last picture is certainly very dramatic as to
> the damage an earthquake can cause. As I live in
> the eastern part of the country, these pictures
> certainly give one a sense of the severe damage
> that can be done.
>
> Jim

Well, keep in mind that most of the damage was done by the cars themselves. The earthquake didn't do much more than a stupid driver plowing into the side of the train would have done. Earthquakes in the 5's can certainly cause damage, but it is usually fairly small and localized, tending to the occasional broken window or cracked wall. Or in this case, some kinked rail. Of course, a little kinked rail is all that is needed to get a nice big train pretty confused.