Maven
07-18-2012, 11:32 AM
This is from the Trainorders.com site, specifically Railroaders' Nostalgia. Ignore the railroad jargon and read the full tale about the Oxnard Explosion:
Back in the mid-70's on the SP I caught an eastbound peddler (freight train making lots of set outs and pick ups) down the coast as the rear man with a conductor who was used in emergency, neither of us were regular on this crew. We got down to Oxnard and did some work in the yard. Just as we started to pull out of town the train went in to emergency. The head end immediately got on the radio and reported a massive explosion. As I got back off the caboose to inspect the train all I could see going around the curve by the depot was the huge block of jumbo LPG tank cars we had in the train, not a heartwarming sight under the circumstances. As I got up near the head end I found the blast site-a boxcar with the doors blown off, the roof bulged up and the frame bowed down on the rails by the force of the explosion. The comm pole line (what was left of it in those post-microwave days) had the wires wrapped around the nearby eucalyptus trees. There was a sea of empty .223 (AR-15/M16) casings all over the ground, these had live primers but no powder or lead bullets. The train order operator's company truck was parked on the street, he had just delivered new orders to the head end and was driving back when the doors from that side of the boxcar were been blown over the hood of the truck, he was pretty much a basket case and it was time to clean out his pants. The FBI was so worried over terrorism that they flew in to the Ventura County Airport/Oxnard Air Force Base. The waybill for the car was out of either Portland or Seattle and had been billed out by the scrap dealer as "scrap brass for remelting purposes only". They had placed two 55 gallon barrels of live, loose primers in the center of the car and basically filled the rest of the car with drums of the empty casings with live primers that were all over the ground. The primers flashed and the rest is history. The owner/responsible party at the scrap dealer later was convicted on federal charges and went to prison. We just cut off the power, made a cut and sucked the rear end back and shoved it in to the yard, went back up and doubled the head end to it and left town-after a fair amount of FBI interviews, etc. Just another fun trip on the coast!
Back in the mid-70's on the SP I caught an eastbound peddler (freight train making lots of set outs and pick ups) down the coast as the rear man with a conductor who was used in emergency, neither of us were regular on this crew. We got down to Oxnard and did some work in the yard. Just as we started to pull out of town the train went in to emergency. The head end immediately got on the radio and reported a massive explosion. As I got back off the caboose to inspect the train all I could see going around the curve by the depot was the huge block of jumbo LPG tank cars we had in the train, not a heartwarming sight under the circumstances. As I got up near the head end I found the blast site-a boxcar with the doors blown off, the roof bulged up and the frame bowed down on the rails by the force of the explosion. The comm pole line (what was left of it in those post-microwave days) had the wires wrapped around the nearby eucalyptus trees. There was a sea of empty .223 (AR-15/M16) casings all over the ground, these had live primers but no powder or lead bullets. The train order operator's company truck was parked on the street, he had just delivered new orders to the head end and was driving back when the doors from that side of the boxcar were been blown over the hood of the truck, he was pretty much a basket case and it was time to clean out his pants. The FBI was so worried over terrorism that they flew in to the Ventura County Airport/Oxnard Air Force Base. The waybill for the car was out of either Portland or Seattle and had been billed out by the scrap dealer as "scrap brass for remelting purposes only". They had placed two 55 gallon barrels of live, loose primers in the center of the car and basically filled the rest of the car with drums of the empty casings with live primers that were all over the ground. The primers flashed and the rest is history. The owner/responsible party at the scrap dealer later was convicted on federal charges and went to prison. We just cut off the power, made a cut and sucked the rear end back and shoved it in to the yard, went back up and doubled the head end to it and left town-after a fair amount of FBI interviews, etc. Just another fun trip on the coast!