Any news yet on a new wreck near Illmon. Kevin this is your neck of the woods. If you pass an emergency vehicles tonight, follow them
Another one!!! Whoever is taking care of the rails over the Loop is not doing a very good job... I hope to catch some detours on the Coastline if they happen , Keep us updated Brett and Kevin.
Heard something about 11 cars on the ground, so it doesn't sound initially serious, but who knows. Any more info would be great.
From BNSF service site... http://domino.bnsf.com/website/updates.nsf/updates-service-industrial/4F9CFBB5EA870F7E86256B1A007628C3?Open
The update from the BNSF site is the best information I have seen. The local news has almost completely ignored it, and the coverage they did have was a 10 second spot with no useful information as they said the derailment was "just outside Tehachapi". For those familiar with the area, Ilmon is far from being outside Tehachapi. Just a minor correction of the information on the BNSF website, Ilmon is actually about 20 miles East of Bakersfield, not 3 miles. As for my direct knowlege of the incident, I don't know anything more than has already been reported as weekdays for me are spent from dawn to dusk at work meaning it is hard for me to get out and check out this incident. As for the proximity of the three accidents that have occurred recently on the Mohjave Sub, I think it is not the result of poor track maintenance. The accident at Caliente was caused by an unexpected emergency brake application. The Fleta accident, although the cause has yet to be made public, appears to be caused by some form of operational error as opposed to track defects. If I had to take a guess about the cause of this derailment, I would first suspect something along the lines of a broken wheel or other equipment malfunction, although a broken rail is also a possibility. If I see or hear anything else, I'll let you all know. [ 07 December 2001: Message edited by: Kevin Stevens ]</p>
Driving to work today, an Eastbound BNSF stack train was headed out of town followed closely by what appeared to be the UP's I-OAHO. Looks like the derailment has been cleaned up, and today should be one long parade of trains over Tehachapi. I still haven't gone to the derailment site, and it doesn't look like I have any free time to do so in the next several days. **Update** I just came back from a quick trip to check out the derailment site. The location is the West switch at Ilmon, which is across the Caliente Creek bed from Bena Road. Latest reports are that a car in the westbound train derailed and was dragged along until it reached the West switch where a general pileup of 11 cars occurred. No haz-mat involved, but the switch was taken out, and there are reportedly 2 miles worth of damaged concrete ties on the South track between Caliente and Ilmon. All trains were using the North track between Caliente and Ilmon, with the railroad operating currently as single track between Bena and Bealville which will be quite a bottleneck until they get the switch replaced. There were approximately three BNSF Eastbounds lined up between Bakersfield and Bena, and radio chatter revealed much traffic East of the derailment site as well. I would expect heavy traffic on the line all weekend, but there could be some work windows at the wreck site that may shut things down for a while. [ 07 December 2001: Message edited by: Kevin Stevens ]</p>
