- hace 4 horas
On 12 May 1989, a 69-car freight train goes out of control while descending from California's Cajon Pass. It derails in a residential neighbourhood of San Bernardino after reaching speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour (160 km/h). Two residents and two train crew members are killed in the initial crash. More than a week later, an underground gasoline pipeline, damaged by earth-moving equipment during the post-crash clean-up, ruptures and sparks a fire that kills another two people. Clerks in Mojave had greatly underestimated the train's weight, and it had been assembled without enough locomotives to provide adequate braking. Additionally, several of the engines' brakes were completely inoperative, but this information was not passed on to the crews.
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00:07A freight train is out of control.
00:09Get on the phone. Tell them we've got a runaway train.
00:127551 to West Colton.
00:14Its brakes can't hold it as it rockets down a mountain.
00:17Mayday, mayday. We're doing 90 miles an hour. 9-0.
00:23Now thousands of tons of steel and freight are heading straight for a small town.
00:33We're going to die on that curve.
00:36An innocent mistake risks the lives of everyone on board and many more in the town below.
01:09Early morning, May the 12th, 1989.
01:12On a railroad siding in the desert, a freight train waits to head up over California's San Gabriel Mountains.
01:20Frank Holland is the chief engineer for Southern Pacific Freight Train No. 7551 East.
01:27Well, my job as an engineer is to get on the train, operate the locomotives, obey the rules, speeds, slow
01:37down at restrictions, and get the train from point A to point B.
01:44His work on this trip actually began the night before, at the Mojave Rail Yard.
01:49Some of Southern Pacific's freight trains are put together here, picking up crews and engines to take them across the
01:55country.
01:57Holland is here to collect the paperwork he'll need for the journey.
02:04Holland was promoted to chief engineer three years before.
02:08Okay, clearance form, train orders, train list, and tonnage profile.
02:17His paperwork tells him he's hauling 69 freight cars, each one weighing 54,431 kilos.
02:25Holland also learns that the cars are all filled with the same thing, trona.
02:30It's a non-toxic chemical used in fertilizer.
02:34So you start making your calculations on what kind of horsepower you're going to have to have to take that
02:42train down that hill,
02:43and that will tell you at what speed you can go.
02:46Thanks.
02:47Have a good one.
02:49Altogether, Holland's paperwork tells him he's hauling more than 3.5 million kilos of cargo, more than 10 jumbo jets.
03:00The cargo's final destination is South America.
03:03Today, Holland's only taking it as far as the West Colton Terminal, near Los Angeles.
03:08To do that, he'll have to haul the cargo up the San Gabriel Mountains and through the Cajon Pass.
03:15Then he'll carefully slow his huge train as it winds down the mountain.
03:22Hey, guys, we're going down to West Colton.
03:24We've got 69 cars filled with trona.
03:27Everett Crown is the conductor of 7551.
03:31He'll sit up in the front engine to assist Holland.
03:34Alan Rees is the brakeman this morning.
03:36He'll ride two engines back.
03:38Can I be back in three?
03:39Between them, the three men have almost 50 years of experience working the trains with Southern Pacific.
03:52To make sure he has enough power to move his train up and down the mountain,
03:56Holland has asked for a little assistance.
04:00Southern Pacific dispatchers send him two helper engines.
04:06Lawrence Hill is the engineer at the back.
04:09Robert Waterbury is his brakeman.
04:12While they've run this route before, it's not where they normally work.
04:17They don't know the weight of the cargo they're helping to haul, and they don't ask.
04:267551 East now has four engines up front and two behind.
04:30With the last two in place, the train is all set to go.
04:34Helper calling head end.
04:38Head end.
04:39Coupled and ready to go.
04:41Roger that.
05:087551 East slowly gathers steam.
05:10In just an hour and a half, it'll reach the top of the mountains,
05:14the 1,300-metre-high Cajon Pass.
05:27Helper to head end.
05:29Head end.
05:30We've cleared the siding.
05:45On the other side of the mountains, the town of San Bernardino is slowly coming to life.
05:56The Muskoi section is a fairly new development on the north-western edge of the town.
06:01It's filled with single-story homes and growing families.
06:11Christopher Shaw is waking up at 2326 Duffy Street.
06:15It's his mother's house, but after a fight with his girlfriend, he'd spent the night.
06:23Across the street, Ruth Green has succeeded in getting three children out of bed and off to school.
06:28Her only daughter, LaVonne, is staying home.
06:32It's just my daughter and I, and we're just making ready for what we consider a normal morning.
06:38We had had our breakfast and was straightening up in the kitchen.
06:42One of the only things people don't like about this part of San Bernardino is the train tracks.
06:48Trains race by on top of a six-metre-high levy.
06:52Some of the houses on Duffy Street back right up to the tracks.
06:56When the homes went up for sale, the realtor was showing my husband a home that was on the same
07:04side of the street as the tracks.
07:06The tracks would have been behind our home, and he said no.
07:10He didn't want that.
07:15Just after 7 a.m., 7551 East reaches the highest point of its trip, the Cajon Pass.
07:23It's all downhill from here.
07:30The Cajon Pass is a vital rail link between Los Angeles and the rest of the world.
07:35It's one of only three ways to get through the mountains.
07:38Dozens of trains rumble through here every day.
07:42Traditionally, in railroading, mountain railroaders are respected as the big guys, the tough guys, because they have the most demanding
07:52job.
07:53Cajon Pass is one of the toughest mountain passes for railroaders to deal with in the entire United States.
08:01So many trains go over it, and it is extremely demanding that everyone has to be on their toes 100
08:09% all the time.
08:17Engineer Frank Holland and conductor Everett Crown have the train right on time.
08:24There hasn't been any communication between the men at the front and the two men at the back of the
08:28train since the trip began.
08:30There's been no need.
08:32Everything's running smoothly.
08:35Now comes the most critical part of the journey, slowing the massive train as it starts down the mountain.
08:40What we do when we run a train from the Mojave area to Colton is basically we drive it off
08:51a cliff.
08:52At that point, the track tips over and goes downhill at a very steep grade, 2.2%.
09:01And for trains, 2.2 feet down in every 100 feet is like falling off a cliff.
09:12As 7551 East begins heading downhill, the crews still believe it's a normal run.
09:18What they don't know is that their train is already out of control, and they have no way to slow
09:24it down.
09:30May the 12th, 1989.
09:32Just after 7 in the morning, Southern Pacific Freight Train 7551 East begins the long, slow descent from the top
09:40of the San Gabriel Mountains.
09:42The massive train is hauling 69 cars full of freight.
09:48At the bottom of the hill, the sleepy town of San Bernardino, California.
09:55As the tracks start dipping downhill, engineer Frank Holland first applies his dynamic brakes.
10:01They slow each of the six engines, reducing the speed of the entire train.
10:06He's only allowed to go 48 kilometers an hour through the pass.
10:10He checks in with Lawrence Hill, the engineer in the helper engine at the back of the train, to make
10:15sure he can maintain his speed.
10:34The first part of the downhill run twists back and forth 56 times.
10:40The friction from the turns helps slow the mammoth train.
10:47Even with the turns, Holland starts applying his air brakes.
10:51They put pressure on the wheels of each freight car.
10:54The train is now traveling at 40 kilometers an hour.
10:58That's exactly where Holland wants it to stay.
11:08Once through the curves, though, Holland's brake man, Everett Crown, notices that the train is picking up speed.
11:16Frank, we're at 30.
11:19Should be at 25.
11:27The train actually was maintaining its speed.
11:29It might have been picking up just a little bit, but we still had a long way to go.
11:44It's creeping.
11:47Confused, Holland continues to increase the pressure on the air brakes.
11:52But the train just keeps going faster.
11:58By the time it reached 40 miles an hour, I was very concerned.
12:06The train was speeding.
12:13As the train approaches 72 kilometers an hour, Holland turns his air brakes on full.
12:22But it doesn't help.
12:29At the bottom of the hill, the track bends around the town of San Bernardino.
12:34Frank Holland knows he's not supposed to go more than 64 kilometers an hour around the corner.
12:44Partway down the hill, he's already going much faster than that.
12:49Ruth Green's husband has left for work.
12:52Her three youngest children are off to school.
12:55Across the street, Chris Shaw is just about to take a shower.
13:00Engineer Frank Holland knows there are several houses that are right in the way if his train comes off the
13:05track.
13:07I've been over that territory many times, and yeah, I knew that there was a curve coming down there that
13:13we weren't going to make.
13:19The emergency brakes haven't worked.
13:22Smoke begins pouring out from underneath the train, and it just keeps going faster.
13:2760.
13:3070.
13:3380.
13:34It stopped at 90 because that's as far as the speedometer would go.
13:39But Holland knows 7551 East is still picking up speed.
13:48I'm thinking, my God, I'm fired.
13:51Actually, that's what I thought.
13:53I'm just looking at everything that I've done.
13:55I'm trying to go back and see where I had made a mistake, what had happened.
14:037551 to West Colton.
14:067551 to West Colton.
14:08We're trying to get a hold of the train dispatcher, and he won't answer.
14:12The train is out of control, and they can't tell anyone about it.
14:16At that point, we're just kind of out there by ourselves.
14:20Try that phone again.
14:227551 to West Colton.
14:26West Colton, go ahead.
14:28We have a slight problem.
14:31At the back of the train, engineer Lawrence Hill listens to the radio call.
14:36I don't know if we can get this train stopped.
14:38He breaks in, desperate to tell the dispatcher how dangerous the situation is.
14:42Mayday, mayday.
14:44We're doing 90 miles an hour.
14:469-0.
14:47Out of control.
14:48Won't be able to stop till we hit Colton.
14:52But there's nothing the dispatcher can do.
14:55The train is traveling at more than 160 kilometers an hour.
14:59The houses of San Bernardino are just seconds away.
15:09Down in the town, a strange rumbling breaks the morning calm.
15:15My house began to vibrate.
15:18The house was rattling so hard, I would have thought that the windows would have broke.
15:23It just got worse and worse.
15:25By then, I realized it was the train.
15:28As we were coming up to that curve, I looked over at Everett, and I said,
15:32We're going to die on that curve.
15:33He, um, wild-eyed like he was just couldn't believe and just scared to death.
15:41And I'm sure I looked the same way.
15:45All I knew is that I just put my feet up there and I said,
15:47Hang on, here we go.
15:49I never expected to survive.
15:51I never expected to survive.
16:21I never expected to survive.
17:14I never expected to survive.
17:20assistance. We went on the ground.
17:29Incredibly, engineer Frank Holland survives the wreck. The man in charge of the train
17:35crawls away from his ruined engine, the first of the cars to derail.
17:41Everett, where's Everett? We gotta get him. He's still inside.
17:44Let's get you down first.
17:47He's helped out of the train by eyewitnesses to the disaster.
17:53And they pulled me off of the locomotive and set me down. It was just, I just couldn't
17:59believe it. The cars were just mangled. The locomotives were destroyed. It was just, you
18:05know, unbelievable devastation. I looked back at that and I went, oh my God. What did I
18:11do?
18:18Frank Holland has broken several ribs. One of his lungs is punctured.
18:23The man who was riding with him, Everett Crown, is soon found dead. As is Alan Reese, the
18:31brakeman who was riding in the third engine.
18:39Footage taken shortly after the crash shows the scale of the disaster. Seven houses have
18:45been destroyed. The train itself is a write-off.
18:48As the dust cleared, then you could see some of the cars had, you know, toppled over. You
18:55could see that it looked like, you know, some houses were gone.
18:59You could see just a twisted, jumbled mass of metal. These cars are turned over. You're
19:09really trying to grapple with, what is this? What's happened?
19:28Alan Simpson is a battalion chief with the San Bernardino Fire Department.
19:33The house that we focused on with the information that the mother gave us about one individual
19:40was totally obliterated. You wouldn't have recognized it as a house. It looked like
19:45a jumble of somebody gone through it with a bulldozer.
19:47They were hollering that there's somebody still in there. We later learned that that
19:52was where Chris Shaw lived. And when you looked at that house, it was like you'd say there was
19:58no way anybody could still be alive under all of that rubble and wreckage.
20:06The wreckage is also hiding an explosive problem. No one in the neighborhood knew
20:10about. Running alongside the railway, about two meters below the ground, is a pipeline
20:16carrying fuel back up the mountain. If it's been damaged in the derailment, a single spark
20:24could cause a major explosion. Prior to this incident, we were not aware
20:30that this pipeline existed and ran directly behind our homes.
20:33The thought's always in the back of your mind if you have something like that. This is
20:36major, a 14-inch pipe full of pressurized fuel. We know what that's going to do if it ruptures.
20:42The pipeline is operated by the Kalnev pipeline company. It pulls hundreds of barrels of
20:49fuel from the pipe, trying to reduce the size of any potential explosion.
20:56But much more fuel remains behind. Automatic safety valves in the pipeline that are supposed
21:03to shut off individual sections aren't working. The company can't completely drain the area
21:09under the derailment. Almost three hours after the crash, rescue workers find the body of a small
21:17child. He's the second young boy killed in the disaster.
21:21Well, after we recovered the two children from the one house, there wasn't a lot of hope for
21:26finding anybody else at that point. But you never give up hope. You always keep trying.
21:32But there's pressure to wind the search down. Every moment spent looking for Chris Shaw further delays
21:39the cleanup. And Kalnev can't check the pipeline properly until the rail cars are gone. An entire
21:45neighborhood holds its breath. Is there any chance Shaw could possibly have lived through the disaster?
21:55Southern Pacific train 7551 East has crashed into San Bernardino, California. Four people are dead. And an entire
22:04neighborhood has been evacuated. A gas pipeline under the wreck hasn't been checked yet.
22:13Chris Shaw was in one of the houses destroyed when the train derailed.
22:1812 hours later, he's still missing. George Avery, a firefighter for less than a year,
22:26takes his shift at the crash site. We were ordered to relieve the crews that were trying to search for
22:34a body. And at that time, they thought it was a body recovery. Shaw is the last person in the
22:42neighborhood still to be accounted for. Workers ask his mother to draw a map of the
22:47house. She tells them her son was in the bathroom when the train derailed. Workers concentrate their final
22:56search effort there.
23:04There's pieces of the house itself sticking out of this big potash mound. So you have studs and rafters and
23:11roof covering.
23:12So they gave me a specific area. So I started removing the product. And as I did so for, it
23:18seemed like an eternity, but it was probably an hour, hour and a half. This void occurred and started to
23:25reveal itself in front of me.
23:28As Avery reaches into the opening, he feels something snag his jacket.
23:34So then I immediately pulled it out, thinking it was caught on a nail or whatever. As I pulled it
23:40out and looked inside, I saw this hand waving in front.
23:44I found him! I found him!
23:51Help! Somebody help me!
24:02It takes workers nearly an hour and a half to pull Chris from the wreckage.
24:07Debris from the train had formed a protective cocoon around him. It gave Shaw air to breathe and kept the
24:14jagged metal from crushing him.
24:17We were absolutely amazed that he lived, especially that long. We're talking about most of the day.
24:23Really didn't think he had much of a chance. So when he came up out of there, it was just
24:28stunning.
24:30With Shaw's rescue, everyone in the neighborhood and on the train has been found.
24:35The wreck of 7551 East has killed four people, injured four more and totally destroyed seven houses.
24:47Even with Shaw's rescue, San Bernardino's troubles aren't over yet.
24:52If the Calnev pipeline has been damaged, it could explode at any time, destroying more homes and taking more lives.
25:07With that threat hanging over the neighborhood, the search for the cause of the derailment begins.
25:14William Pugh and Russell Quimby are with the National Transportation Safety Board.
25:19By the time the team got there, it was fairly late and it was dark and the scene looked like
25:24Dante's Inferno.
25:26A lot of wreckage, a lot of parts still, particularly the brake parts, wheels, red hot still after 12 hours.
25:33Wheels had gotten so hot, they'd literally expanded off the axles.
25:39The friction between the wheels, the brakes and the tracks was so intense that the wheels themselves began to liquify,
25:47turning to molten steel as the train sped down the hill.
25:51Investigators know the train's brakes couldn't slow it down, but why?
26:01The next day, clean-up operations begin.
26:05Southern Pacific needs to clear its ruined train from the area.
26:09It's the only way investigators can work and Calnev can check its pipeline.
26:14Southern Pacific has all of the cars moved two days later, but the ground is still covered with 7551 East's
26:21cargo, hundreds of tons of Trona.
26:32Calnev begins clearing the Trona along the route of the pipeline.
26:36It's the quickest way to inspect the line and it keeps the heavy equipment away.
26:42They made five or six excavations down to the pipeline to visually look at the pipeline.
26:48They felt comfortable that nothing had penetrated to the depth of the pipeline.
26:55The fuel is under incredible pressure. Any damage could lead to a massive leak and possible explosion.
27:03But Calnev finds nothing. The depth of the pipe has shielded it from the storm above.
27:10The pipeline is a vital source of gas for Las Vegas, almost 320 kilometers away.
27:17It supplies both civilian and military customers in the desert.
27:22There's pressure to get the gas moving again.
27:27There were a number of people in the community that thought it should not be open and supposedly people in
27:32Las Vegas had said that they had cars that were worth more than our homes on Duffy Street and so
27:38fire up the pipeline.
27:42Just four days after the derailment, the pipeline is restarted.
27:47Calnev watches for any drop in pressure.
27:49It would mean fuel was escaping, that there was a leak somewhere in the system.
27:53But it holds.
28:02The very same day, Southern Pacific finishes its repairs on the damaged railway.
28:08Trains are once again moving past San Bernardino.
28:17The clean-up isn't quite finished though.
28:20More of the ash-like cargo of train 7551 East is littered across the area.
28:26Heavy machinery comes in to dig it up and haul it away.
28:30The huge machines could easily damage the pipeline, so it's carefully marked with stakes.
28:36I told my husband one evening that I smelt gas, but we had been reassured that they had inspected this
28:44line and that there were no leaks.
28:47I was at the accident site until it was finally cleaned up and there was a fence put around the
28:52area and secured.
28:54And it looked like everything was fine.
29:09Early morning, May the 25th.
29:11It's been almost two weeks since 7551 East derailed, slamming into San Bernardino.
29:18But the clean-up was fast.
29:20For more than a week, the trains and the fuel in a pipeline below have been running smoothly.
29:36Then, from a clear sky, rain seems to fall.
29:44Large sections of the neighbourhood are soaked by this peculiar shower.
29:51Ruth Green is back in her house when...
29:59For the second time in a month, she's confronted with a horrifying sight.
30:04To the left of me, as far as I could see up, down or side to side, was nothing but
30:12a big wall of fire.
30:14I got to the front door, neighbours were screaming, get out, get out.
30:18I ran for my life.
30:27Once again, the fire department responds to a major disaster on Duffy Street.
30:39As we're getting the call and getting on the rig and opening the door, there was no doubt in my
30:43mind what that was.
30:44You could see a huge column of smoke and flame.
30:47And I knew immediately it had to be the pipeline.
30:50A tower of smoke and flame reaches more than a hundred metres into the sky.
31:00Initially, when we got in there, we were so close that the plastic lenses on the front of the engine
31:05melted.
31:05Several of the turn signals, part of the red lights melted.
31:11There was an intense noise coming from this pipeline where it had ruptured.
31:17It sounded like a jet engine.
31:20Deafening is how I would describe it.
31:22And we dealt with that all day long.
31:25Local firefighters aren't the only ones called back to the scene.
31:28I got a call to report to the chairman's office.
31:31I went down to the chairman's office, notified that the pipeline blew up and that I should get my team
31:38together again.
31:39The area looked more or less like a war zone, where a lot of damage, a lot of fire damage
31:43had been done.
31:45Houses in the area were insinuated.
31:50Once again, CalNEV, which runs the pipeline, can't shut its emergency valves.
31:55Almost two million litres of fuel burned for more than seven hours.
32:04By the time the flames are out, two people are dead.
32:08Three more are injured.
32:09Another 11 houses have been destroyed.
32:14The residents of San Bernardino are in shock.
32:18They talked about the fact that one of the people that died,
32:21that all they really could find was their shoes that were left in one spot.
32:27And that, you know, the mental picture of that, it troubles you quite a bit.
32:32After the fire, it was over for me.
32:35I just, I couldn't see myself living in the house anymore.
32:38It really scared me just that bad.
32:44What people here will soon learn is that all of the damage, pain and suffering is the result of a
32:51simple, horrifying mistake.
33:01A small neighbourhood in San Bernardino, California, has been devastated by two disasters.
33:07In just 13 days, a train derailment and a gas explosion have ripped through the area, killing six people.
33:21Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board study both accidents.
33:25With the train crash, they focus on black boxes, which were recovered from three of the engines.
33:32And that records, uh, distance, speed, throttle position, air brake pressures, uh, that we tried to figure out what speed
33:40the train eventually got to, it exceeded the graph.
33:45The black boxes reveal that 7551 East had probably reached the incredible speed of 177 kilometres per hour before derailing.
33:54The speed limit on the curve was just over 60 kilometres an hour.
33:59Although the train's brakes had been applied, it continued accelerating.
34:09How had the train become so out of control?
34:14Almost all accidents are a chain of events that linked together to cause the accident.
34:18Of course, at any one point, if you'd broken that link, you know, the accident wouldn't have occurred.
34:24Like other freight trains, 7551 East has two different systems to slow it down.
34:31Dynamic brakes and air brakes.
34:36Air brakes push a block against the wheels of each freight car.
34:40The greater the pressure applied to the block, the slower the train goes.
34:46Investigators learned that the air brakes were working properly as the train started down the hill.
34:51As the train sped up, though, engineer Frank Holland maintained pressure on the air brakes.
34:57The heat created by the brakes became so intense that they melted.
35:01By the time of the crash, they were useless.
35:05The team turns its focus to the dynamic brakes.
35:09The dynamic brakes harness a magnetic field created by the engine's main generator.
35:14They reverse the magnetic field, which slows the axles on the locomotive.
35:22There were four engines at the front of the train, and two at the back.
35:27Before beginning his trip, engineer Frank Holland knew that his second engine wasn't working at all,
35:32and that the dynamic brakes on his fourth engine were only working sporadically.
35:37Still, it was more than enough.
35:41We figured that with the units that we had on the head end,
35:44and the two helpers that they gave us later on,
35:47we could do 30 miles an hour down that grade with no problem.
35:53When his train starts down the mountain, Holland has it under control.
35:57With the brakes he has, he should be able to hold his speed.
36:01But he can't.
36:06Frank, we're at 30.
36:07Should be at 25.
36:10It's creeping.
36:13What the NTSB investigators discover from the black boxes is stunning.
36:18The brakes on the third engine at the front of the train didn't work at all,
36:22as 7551 East gathered speed.
36:29During the trip, Holland had even checked with the brake man in the third engine.
36:33Alan.
36:34Yeah?
36:35What are your dynamics like?
36:37They're revving.
36:39But the black boxes show investigators that even though the dynamic brakes
36:42were making the noise they usually make,
36:45they weren't working.
36:47They weren't helping slow the train down at all.
36:51But it gets worse.
36:54Coupled and ready to go.
36:57Of the two engines added to the back of the train,
37:00one didn't have any braking power either.
37:03Lawrence Hill, the engineer at the back, knew it,
37:06but he never told Frank Holland.
37:08He didn't communicate to him that he had only one locomotive at a dynamic.
37:13The other one was out.
37:14The helper engineer thought that the dispatcher would notify the lead engineer.
37:21Calling the helper.
37:22This is the helper.
37:24You got all your dynamics?
37:27Yeah, I'm in full.
37:29So when Holland asks Hill at the back of the train if he has all of his dynamics,
37:33Hill says yes.
37:36But he only means in the one engine.
37:38It's a startling discovery.
37:41Holland doesn't have anywhere near the braking power he thinks he does.
37:44But Pugh is still puzzled.
37:46According to all the paperwork, 7551 East was hauling three and a half million kilos of cargo.
37:53At that weight, even with his crippled engines,
37:56Holland should have been able to hold his speed going down the mountain.
38:00To find out why he couldn't, investigators turned their attention to the days before the accident.
38:137551 East was pulling a shipment for lake minerals.
38:17Five days before the trip began,
38:20the company's superintendent drops off the proper paperwork with Thomas Blair,
38:24who works for Southern Pacific.
38:26The paperwork outlines what's in the shipment and, normally, how much it weighs.
38:32Thanks.
38:36In this case, though, the weight was not filled in.
38:40Lake Minerals believed each of the cars was filled to its maximum, 90,000 kilos.
38:48Hey!
38:52Hey!
38:55Since that's what the company expected,
38:57Lake Minerals didn't think there was any reason to put the number down.
39:01But Blair knows that to fill out the proper computer forms,
39:04he'll need to have a weight, or the train won't be able to leave the train yard.
39:12Blair has been working with Southern Pacific for 17 years.
39:16He's seen thousands of freight cars leave his yard.
39:19He makes an educated guess that the material in each car on the train weighs 54,000 kilos.
39:29But Blair's guess is a tragic miscalculation.
39:33Every single freight car on 7551 East is actually carrying 36,000 kilos more material than he estimated.
39:41Across 69 cars, it means that the train is actually more than six jumbo jets,
39:46two and a half million kilos heavier than anyone thinks it is.
39:51Nobody caught the fact that the weights were way under.
39:55Train orders, train lists, and tonnage profile.
39:59From then on, the engineer had a profile of the train that showed 6,100 ton.
40:06Can I be back in three?
40:07Okay.
40:08He operated that way.
40:09And it was wrong.
40:11It was dramatically wrong.
40:13I mean, that was only two-thirds of the weight of that train.
40:15That train was doomed and we just didn't know it.
40:22Frank Holland was in trouble before his trip began.
40:26Even if all of his engines were working, it would have been a difficult trip down the mountain.
40:31With all the problems he had, he simply didn't have the power to slow his enormous train down.
40:37Crashing into San Bernardino was all but inevitable from the beginning.
40:43The wreck of 7551 East was a preventable disaster.
40:50Investigators are about to discover that the explosion which followed didn't have to happen either.
41:00In May of 1989, twin disasters shatter the town of San Bernardino, California.
41:07A train derailment and a gas line explosion kill six people and destroy more than a dozen houses.
41:16Investigators comb through the ashes to learn how the two events are linked.
41:25The pipeline was two meters below ground.
41:29And in the days after the derailment, Kalnev examined it closely.
41:33They couldn't find a single dent or crack where the train had broken through the earth.
41:38The train crash hadn't seemed to weaken the pipeline.
41:44And when gas began pumping through the pipe, there was no loss of pressure, no warning sign of a problem.
41:51They started operating and brought it up to about 1,600 pounds.
41:56And all of the pressure readings at various places along the pipeline looked normal.
42:06Since the derailment itself didn't cause the rupture, investigators continue their search.
42:12They study the pipeline for clues.
42:15Even though the fire burned for hours, the piece of pipe that burst has not been destroyed.
42:24When the pipe opened up, it caused a rupture in the pipe that was sort of what we term as
42:30a fish mouth shape.
42:32And at the widest area, it was about four inches wide and it was about two and a half feet
42:37long.
42:41Like forensic investigators, the NTSB looks for a telltale fingerprint that will help them discover how the pipe broke.
42:50Near the spot where the pipe ruptured, investigators find dents and several deeper gouges.
42:58The marks are like wounds on a murder victim.
43:01If investigators can find out what caused the marks, they'll discover what caused the pipeline to burst.
43:07We knew that there were deposits of hardened steel left in the gouges.
43:13We knew that whatever piece of equipment had damaged the pipe, had teeth on it that were hardened steel.
43:21There are several possible suspects.
43:24A number of front end loaders and one large backhoe used during the cleanup all had hardened steel teeth.
43:31But Batten can never pinpoint the blame.
43:35Well, the NTSB determined that the damage to the pipeline was done during one of two phases.
43:43Either the cleanup of the train wreckage or it was done during the time in which the Trona was being
43:49cleaned up.
43:49After the train wreckage had been removed.
43:56Two mistakes resulted in a pair of disasters for San Bernardino and the death of six people.
44:12In its final report on the disasters, the NTSB doesn't blame Frank Holland, saying his belief that he had enough
44:19braking power to stop the train was perfectly reasonable.
44:28Holland still rides the rails, but he's never made the trip down the San Gabriel Mountains again.
44:36Psychologically, I just don't think I could take it.
44:38I don't think I could relive that.
44:41Every time I went down, I would relive it.
44:44And, uh, I choose not to do that.
44:47It would just be too painful.
44:52Kalnev, the company that operated the pipeline, was called to account for not checking it after the cleanup operations were
44:58completed.
45:00Lawsuits against the company were settled out of court.
45:04Kalnev, in hindsight, I think would agree that they should have been much more thorough in their inspection.
45:12They got comfortable with what they saw.
45:15And they made an assessment without adequate information that it was an undamaged pipeline and okay to operate.
45:24Thomas Blair, who incorrectly filled in the paperwork, was never charged.
45:29But after the disaster, Southern Pacific changed its rules so that every freight car without a specified weight was assumed
45:37to be carrying its maximum allowable load.
45:42Southern Pacific also settled a number of lawsuits out of court.
45:46The company no longer exists.
45:48It was bought out years after the disaster.
45:56It was bought out years after the disaster.
45:57Trains continued to run past San Bernardino.
46:00But many of the families involved in the disaster moved away.
46:05Trains were still coming down out of Cajon Pass.
46:09And so a person couldn't help but go and their mind go to where, what if that this thing could
46:17happen again?
46:23Houses aren't allowed beside the tracks anymore.
46:29All that's left is an ugly scar of land.
46:35There's no monument here to mourn those who died.
46:40Or to mark the day when disaster came to Duffy Street.
46:44Or to mark the day when disaster came to Duffy Street.
46:58The