KELSO, Calif. — Two locomotives and 55 cars of a runaway Union Pacific train carrying iron ore derailed near the Mojave Desert community of Kelso today (Monday, March 27), officials from the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District reported.
Union Pacific spokesman Mike Jaixen has confirmed that there was “uncontrolled train movement” of the southbound train and that “the crew was not in the cab at the time of the derailment.” Social media reports had indicated a runaway incident, although other details of those initial reports remain unconfirmed.
KVVU-TV reports the derailment occurred about 8:30 a.m. No injuries were reported; the fire department said hazardous materials teams are dealing with a minor fuel leak from one of the locomotives.
Jaixen said the ore, used in the steelmaking process, is not a hazardous material and that there were no hazardous materials on the train.
Kelso is about 75 miles east of Barstow and 30 miles southeast of Baker, Calif.
Union Pacific is advising customers that a service interruption through the area will result in a minimum delay of 48 hours for shipments between Barstow and Las Vegas, Nev.
— Updated at 4:05 p.m. CDT with confirmation of runaway incident; updated March 28 at 8 a.m. CDT with customer advisory.
A very long 154 car, very, very heavy train. Just what the PSR people point to with pride as saving fuel using as few engines as possible.. My opinion trains running on 2.2% grade should have enough locomotives to have enough dynamic brake to over come the weight of the train on down grades. And a good amount of them should be on the front. Due to broken coupling in the train it appears two engines could not hold the 55 very heavy cars and the train ran away. Crew apparently was not hurt, thank goodness.
Reminds me of an ole roofer’s saying: I can get on that steep roof , no problem. OK, how do you get down?
I mentioned it on the forum discussion, but I will mention it here as well. The UP would have added four additional locomotives to this train when it got to the next crew change point at Yermo, CA for the 2.2% descent of Cajon Pass into the LA Basin. This is because BNSF required a train of that weight, nearly 22,000 tons to have NINE locomotives arranged 4x3x3 on their railroad.
Years ago (25?) the UP had another runaway on Cima Hill. Train brakes were defective and the engineer didn’t know what to do. As a later experiment an experienced engineer ran a test train, with the same brake problems, successfully down the same hill.
DPM must be spinning in his grave with the headline on this story. Who is writing this stuff? Kalmbach shoud be ashamed.
“Even if the 2 people on this crew had 30 years, were they on this job to escape the purgatory of PSR on the mainlines?”
Gregg, what on earth are you talking about?
Do you have any idea how long the train was? And this didn’t happen on a branch line. It happened on their main artery between Salt Lake and LA. I think that qualifies as a mainline.
I won’t mention my former railroad employer but back in the late 70 s after working a mainline derailment I would call our office to see where the next derailment was they wanted me to go work. There were many stretches where I wasn’t home much.
Yeah because in my 26 years on the railroad we hear everything and big derailments are no exception they are way up no doubt. When I started a couple big ones a year maybe now how many have we had in the last month? 4 right off the top of my head.
Wonder how much experience that head crew had on this train?
100 years experience or 5 years experience, will not make a difference with a RUNAWAY…just look at the one on CP in Kicking Horse Pass a few years ago. I’m just wondering what an ore train is doing going westbound to California, we don’t have any steel mills that require ore, unless it was going for export.
Not everything happens because of PSR. Just like E. Palestine. Cries of PSR rang out through the smoke and fire. True cause was a failed bearing. Let’s get the facts first before wildly shooting our six shooters. Be curious as to what the cause was.
Uh… how about having fully qualified and experienced crews? The attrition in T&E crews has been well documented. Even if the 2 people on this crew had 30 years, were they on this job to escape the purgatory of PSR on the mainlines?
When I die, I’m gonna go to hell and kick Hunter Harrison’s ass with the force of well over 100,000 freight trains.
Yep, and a 70-car CP yesterday. Getting to be a regular occurrence. Too-long trains, maintenance cut-backs, crew fatigue? And the big bucks keep flowing through the bonus lottery!
Like I’ve been saying, the last couple of years pileups are happening more like once a month rather than once in a blue moon yet there are those that say derailments are down. The crew got off this one thank god. Big derailments are way up I don’t care what some statistic says.
The FRA says derailments are down…are you going to dispute the FRA. Everyone seems to forget that every Tom, Dick and Harry is now a news reporter since they have a cell phone with a camera. Every single little tiny derailment is now being captured and reported to the media, that is the ONLY reason it seems like derailments are up. Before smart phones the only derailments that made the news were major pileups that affected other people…now it’s every single little thing that happens, even if it’s just one wheel dropping to the ground(just check out some YouTube channels if you don’t believe me).
Yeah because in my 26 years on the railroad we hear everything and big derailments are no exception they are way up no doubt. When I started a couple big ones a year maybe now how many have we had in the last month? 4 right off the top of my head.