Possible sabotage derails 3 railroad cars in North Plains April 8 2003 - Hillsboro (OR) Argus NORTH PLAINS, Ore. -- Three railroad cars derailed early Sunday morning in what might have been an act of sabotage. Portland & Western Railroad officials said the incident is under investigation. According to reports, the incident occurred on a side-rail between Northwest Glencoe Road and 311th Avenue. A westbound train coming through town at 4 a.m. ended up on the side-rail because the switch was lined in that direction. The train was traveling at 20 miles per hour, a standard speed through town but too fast for switching to a side-rail. Its two engines and the first two cars made it onto the side-rail, but the remaining three left the track and dug into the ground. All five cars were carrying logs. None of the cars tipped over or lost their loads, and no injuries were reported. Railroad crews repaired the track on Sunday and pulled the cars out of the ground on Monday. The line went back in service Monday afternoon. An eastbound train came through North Plains at 1 a.m. Sunday morning, and the switch was lined for the main rail at that point. It also appeared that a warning sign had been partially removed, which kept the train's engineer from knowing what was going on until it was too late. David Anzur, chief of financial operations for Portland & Western, said it was too early to tell what happened. "It's believed there might have been some sort of sabotage," he said. Gary McKenzie, North Plains Police chief, was more outspoken. "This was a deliberate act to derail a train," he said. The derailment could have been a lot worse, McKenzie added. A residential area backs up to the side-rail side of the railroad property. If Portland & Western had a few cars on the side-rail, as the company usually does, and if the train had hit those cars, "it could have been disastrous," he said. "They were not thinking of the innocent people who could have been injured or killed because of their stupidity," he continued. From now on, McKenzie said, police will cite anyone on railroad property for first-degree criminal trespass, a class A misdemeanor carrying up to $5,000 in fines and one year in prison. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call the North Plains Police Department at 503-647-9604.
Whoever did that should be grateful nobody was hurt. And they also should be grateful it was not handling military goods. Otherwise, they would be subject to 25-30 years in prison. And a well deserved hefty fine! Boxcab E50
JT- Yes. I saw that post. I wonder what goes on in those kids minds? When I was that age, doing something odd was placing a penny on a rail. Or waving at the train crews as they went by. Boxcab E50 [ 12. April 2003, 23:53: Message edited by: BoxcabE50 ]
We still have lome terrorists running around that want to disrupt anything they can get away with, so it may not be some stupid kid's prank!
