Nostalgia & History > 14 Dec 94 Cajon Pass Derailment

On December 14th 1994, I was on active duty in the US Navy and attached to a helicopter squadron at NAS North Island in Coronado CA. While driving to work that morning, I heard LA news station KNX broadcast a report that I-15 was closed in Cajon Pass near Hwy 138 due to a train derailment.

I went in and told the CO that I needed to take the day off to go photograph the derailment. Returned home, changed out of my uniform and grabbed my gear, heading towards the pass. I was able to exit at Hwy 138 and observed the derailment from the east side of the highway.

Santa Fe train P-BHLA1-10 (double stack train) with locomotives 576, 96, 5976 and 144 (I don’t know if this is the exact order of the Santa Fe power) rear-ended a stopped UP CUWLA-10 (coal train) at Cajon with UP helpers 3341 and 3354 on the rear.

I remember seeing a Santa Fe training video produced of the incident that included interviews of the dispatcher and audio of the train crews. To hear the voices of the Santa Fe crew is chilling. I am glad they were not killed.

I have looked long and hard at my slides of the derailment and due to the smoke and the damage, I’ll be darned if I can identify anything that resembles a locomotive.

To all of the members of this group that are still on the rails, yall keep safe.

Respectfully,
Burlington John

---

The Santa Fe rear ended a stopped Union Pacific coal train that had manned helpers on the rear end. The crew escaped unharmed, but the SD40-2's were destroyed. Knocked the prime mover clean
off the frame of one of the helpers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZblSf72q0uM

cringe worthy

Coincidentally I think that day was my last visit to Cajon. My wife and I were up early at our home in Naperville, IL to catch a previously scheduled flight to Ontario, CA and heard about the derailment. When we landed and got our rental car we went up I-15 and got off at 138 and took a few pictures of the fire & derailment from the east side of I-15.

It didn’t occur to me until your post that even though I have visited Southern California many times since then, I have not been back to Cajon.

Luckily for the railroad the derailment occurred where the mains
are widely separated. This was in the midst of Peak Season. By
using the other main and detouring some trains, the ATSF was
able to complete the Peak Season with ZERO UPS failures.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/17 06:27 by Englewood.

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/RAR9504.pdf