Train Wrecks: The 1996 Cajon Pass Runaway 26 Years Later

On this day 26 years ago marked the 3rd runaway train wreck on Cajon Pass. On February 1st, 1996 Santa Fe Freight Train H-BALT-1-31 a 49 car mixed manifest from Barstow to Los Angeles carrying 7 tanker cars filled with toxic chemicals lost it's brakes and sped out of control down the Cajon Pass at 4:10 AM the track jumped the tracks into a dry creek bed adjacent to a trestle bridge. The train's 4 locomotives and 45 out of the 49 cars tumbled off the tracks, rolled onto their sides and exploded into a fiery inferno.