The San Bernardino train disaster, which was also known as the Duffy Street incident or the 1989 Cajon Pass Runaway, was actually two connected events in San Bernardino, California. First, on May 12, 1989, a runaway train derailed. Then, on May 25, the Calnev Pipeline…a petroleum line next to the tracks…failed after being damaged by earth-moving equipment during the crash cleanup.
On the morning of May 12, 1989, at 7:36am, a Southern Pacific freight train with six locomotives and 69 cars carrying Trona, a non-marine evaporite mineral primarily composed of sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, and water, widely used to produce soda ash and baking soda, lost control while coming down Cajon Pass. It derailed on an elevated curve and crashed into a neighborhood on Duffy Street, just northeast of where the 210 Foothill Freeway crosses the Lytle Creek wash.
The conductor, head-end brakeman, and two local residents lost their lives in the wreck. Seven houses along the street next to the tracks were destroyed, along with the lead locomotives and all the freight cars. The investigation would later reveal that the clerks in Mojave had miscalculated the train’s weight, and to make matters worse, the crew at the front didn’t know one of the rear helper engines had faulty dynamic brakes. This meant there wasn’t enough braking power to keep the train’s speed in check during the descent. When the helper engineer realized the speed was getting out of control, he made an emergency brake application, which shut off the dynamic brakes entirely, causing the train to run away. It hit about 110 miles per hour before derailing on an elevated curve with a posted limit of 35, near Duffy Street, sending the lead engines and several cars off the high track bed and into nearby houses, completely leveling them.
Data from the locomotives’ black boxes revealed that the third head-end unit’s dynamic brakes weren’t working at all, though the sound of the cooling fans fooled the crew into thinking they were. After the wreck, it was discovered that the helper locomotive engineer knew about the faulty brakes on one of his units but never told the head-end crew. A mix of weight miscalculation, poor communication, and bad brake equipment left the train far too heavy to control on the downhill grade. This was a disaster waiting to happen. Once dynamic 
braking was lost due to the helper engineer’s emergency brake application, the massive weight of the loaded cars caused a rapid acceleration that mechanical brakes alone couldn’t stop. The train flew off the 35 mile per hour curve by Duffy Street at 110 miles per hour, scattering locomotives, cars, and cargo. Leading were Southern Pacific SD40T-2 8278, SD45Rs 7551 and 7549, and SD45T-2 9340, followed by 69 trona-loaded hopper cars, with SD40T-2 8317 and SD45R 7443 pushing from the rear.
Killed in the wreck were Conductor Everett Crown (fatally crushed in the nose of unit SP 8278) and Brakeman Allan Riess (fatally crushed in the cab of unit SP 7549), along with two young boys, Jason Thompson (age 10 years), and Tyson White (age 7 years), who were crushed and asphyxiated when the train destroyed one of the houses on Duffy Street. Engineer Frank Holland remained in his seat at the control stand in unit SP 8278 at the head of the train and suffered several cracked ribs and a punctured lung. However, he was able to crawl out of his wrecked locomotive and was helped down by eyewitnesses on the scene. Engineer Lawrence Hill and Brakeman Robert Waterbury, who were in the helper locomotives, received minor injuries.
Six feet underground alongside the track lay a 14-inch high-pressure petroleum pipeline operated by Calnev Pipeline. During cleanup, it was marked with stakes to prevent accidental damage. Pipeline officials stayed on site as safety observers while the rail cars were cleared, but not during the trona material cleanup. Train service on the affected track resumed four days after the derailment. Thirteen days later, on May 25, 1989, at 8:05am, just after witnesses saw a train pass through the site, the pipeline burst at the curve where the derailment occurred, spraying gasoline into the neighborhood. The fuel ignited into a massive fire that burned for nearly seven hours, sending flames 300 feet into the air. By the time it was extinguished, the fire had claimed two lives, destroyed eleven more houses and 21 cars. Five of the destroyed homes stood directly across from those lost in the derailment, while another was the only house on Duffy Street’s track side spared in the crash. Four more homes suffered moderate smoke and fire damage, and three others had only smoke damage. Total property losses reached $14.3 million (more $38 million today), with the fire causing more damage than the derailment, though the derailment had more fatalities.
To this day, the neighborhood located at Duffy Street and Donald Street, has not been rebuilt, much to the 
distaste of the residents who lived there. I’m sure it is mostly because of the continuing danger of a derailment at that corner on the tracks, but I don’t suppose the people would understand that. Perhaps a memorial might be erected on the sight, along with a park or something. While people could hear the train coming, I suppose the danger would still exist.
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