Runaway Train Hits 14 Homes : 69 Cars Plunge Off Cajon Pass, Killing 3 and Injuring 7 : Moving at Estimated 100 M.P.H.

A runaway freight train careened down the Cajon Pass, leaped the tracks, plunged down a 30-foot embankment and slammed into 14 homes this morning, killing a trainman and two boys in one of the houses. At least seven others were injured.

All four locomotives and 69 cars of the Southern Pacific train left the track at what several witnesses estimated at more than 100 m.p.h., piling into a grotesque heap of twisted metal that literally flattened two of the homes, including the one in which the boys--believed to be brothers, 7 and 10--died.

Thousands of tons of potash from the train spilled into the yards, houses and streets, burying much of the rubble. Stuffed toys, furniture and kitchen utensils were scattered amid the dusty, splintered debris.

Police, firefighters and neighbors clawed through the wreckage to free the moaning injured and rush them to nearby hospitals. Three hours after the 7:43 a.m. crash, paramedics were still working with power tools in the effort to free the body of the dead trainman from the lead locomotive. None of the dead and injured was immediately identified.

It was not immediately determined what caused the train, which was bound for Long Beach from Mojave, to burst out of control on the long grade down the historic pass between the high Mojave Desert and the San Bernardino Valley below.

“We don’t know yet what happened,” said Bob Hoppe, a spokesman for the Southern Pacific Transportation Co. in San Francisco. “What we know . . . is that it got going pretty fast . . . very fast.”

The train sped for miles down the 2.2% grade before leaping from the tracks on a curve, ripping through some power lines and crashing into the tract of modest single-story houses near Highland Avenue and Duffy Street on the northwest side of San Bernardino. The largely minority neighborhood is sometimes referred to as the Muscoy area.

“I saw some sparks fly through the air,” said Angela McKenzie, 13, who was about to get into the family car and leave for school when she heard the rumble of the approaching train.

“The train was going 100 m.p.h.,” she said. “It was coming at us. I heard a screech and saw the first car come over. Then the other cars smashed behind it and fell on the houses.”

“It was terrible,” said Dane Maloney, who was leaving his home for the drive to work when the train hit. “There were train cars on top of houses. Train cars on top of cars.”

Diesel fuel leaked from the shattered train, and officials concerned about the threat of fire evacuated the neighborhood. However, the fuel did not ignite, and the officials said the train was not carrying any toxic material that posed a hazard to residents or the environment.

The National Transportation Safety Board sent a field representative from Los Angeles and a team of experts from its headquarters in Washington to investigate the accident. San Bernardino police and fire personnel cordoned off the area, and the Red Cross set up an emergency evacuation center.