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Daring Dives Defy Death, Train Rules : Thrills: Officials can’t stop youths who dive from railroad trestle in Carlsbad as the train speeds by at 90 m.p.h.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

When you hang with the boys on the Carlsbad trestle, the rule is you don’t jump until you see the whites of the train engineer’s eyes.

Ignoring the blaring horn or the shouts about your personal safety, you crouch on the wooden trestle’s inner rail until the wicked vortex of the hurtling engine sucks you in and then spits you back out.

Finally, at the last possible moment, with your heart leaping from your chest, you jump toward the water below as the whoosh of the passing cars drowns out your whoops of exhilaration.

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“It’s like the total rush of a lifetime,” says 16-year-old Eric Counihan. “You know the train is barreling down on you. And then, right at the peak of the danger, you bail out. You cheat death. It’s a feeling nothing else can beat.”

Summertime is here. And, along the San Diego County coast, way-cool surfer types have found a way to seek a few thrills at the beach on days when the waves are flat.

Most afternoons, they can be found on the train trestle that spans Carlsbad Lagoon just south of Tamarack Avenue. Like train robbers, they lie in wait for the passing of the northbound and southbound Amtrak San Diegans.

No schedules are needed. The boys have the routine memorized and can predict the approach of a train within minutes while they make a few practice leaps, plunging 35 feet into the salty lagoon waters below.

But sometimes, the big engines surprise them, appearing around the corner as if out of nowhere.

“Train! Train!” they scream as they run for their positions on the rail. And then, in an instant, the thrill is gone. The train has passed. The jumpers are in the water, laughing again at their split-second insult at death.

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The boys call it a little game of trackside chance. Freight train roulette.

“We know what we’re doing,” says Travis Ranson, a 16-year-old who’s long and skinny like a surfboard. “We know the turf here. So what could go wrong?”

Plenty, according to police and railroad officials. Largely uncool things like death. Having your body decapitated and dragged along the tracks so the coroner has to use a dozen different body bags just to pick it all up.

“I’ve seen what happens when a train hits a human body,” said Lt. Joseph Hasenauer of the Carlsbad Police Department. “It’s one of the most horrific things you’ll ever see in your entire life. The body ends up in pieces. Sometimes, they don’t find all of it.

“Kids have been doing stupid things since I was a kid. But these kids think they’re invincible. They’re taking such a stupid chance, one that’s going to catch up with them. If their parents knew, I’d bet that they’d wring their necks.”

Authorities acknowledge that the practice of trestle jumping in Carlsbad goes back for decades; fathers, uncles, and even some police officers are trestle-leaping veterans.

But, in recent years, the practice has taken a decidedly more dangerous turn as youths looking for more electrifying thrills have decided to play chicken with the 150-ton locomotives, which are often traveling at speeds over 90 m.p.h., before making their jumps.

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“The train,” says 13-year-old Justin Vallez of Oceanside, a trestle-jumping veteran, “adds that extra element. And that makes it cool.”

Despite more than a dozen pedestrian deaths on county railroad tracks over the past two years alone--as well as a recent incident where a youth broke an arm after being hit by a train at the Carlsbad trestle--authorities have been unable to dim interest in the practice.

Carlsbad police say the youths’ favorite trestle--known as YMCA because of its proximity to a youth camp nearby--is difficult to patrol because it is on a rutted dirt road that allows teens to scatter like suntanned cockroaches before officers can arrive on the scene.

And a boat patrolman for the city’s recreation department meets with jeers as he tries to chase away the 20 or more youths who gather on the rail bridge on any hazy summer afternoon. “They only thumb their noses at him,” Hasenauer said. “Or worse.”

Mike Martin, a spokesman for the Santa Fe Railway, which owns the tracks, said that youths playing chicken with trains is one of the most frustrating problems the company faces.

“At best, it’s foolish,” he said. “At worst, it’s deadly. But it’s all illegal. That’s private property. But no matter what we’ve done to put the word out to kids and people who feel a need to walk and play games along the railroad tracks, nobody seems to listen.”

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When authorities run the jumpers off, they only return the next day, or even hours later. Fences erected near the site have been torn down and left on the tracks, as though in a show of defiance.

Even safety classes held to warn thrill-happy youngsters have failed to reach their audiences. Martin said a 10-year-old Carlsbad boy who in March had his arm broken by a passing train at the trestle had attended a rail safety class only weeks before.

“That kid had to pass 17 ‘No Trespassing’ signs to reach that spot,” Martin said. “What can we do? We’ve tried everything. The only thing that stops them is when they get too old for it and move on to something else.”

For some, trestle jumping in the path of a passenger or freight train has become some perverse rite of passage.

“Well, there’s other ways to prove your manhood, biological ways,” Martin said. “Even if we installed an electric fence, had television monitors or an army of security out there, those boys would find a way to test their limits.

“They just don’t know what they’re playing with. I’d defy any of these kids to be able to tell me, when they gaze into a train’s headlights, how fast that train is traveling. It’s fast. And it’s going to catch one of those kids one day.”

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The trestle-jumping fad is the latest of a number of games of chance teen-agers have played with trains over the years.

At some spots, teens have lined up successively on the rails to see who will be the last to jump from the train’s path. While being videotaped by their friends, some sit on the tracks and play a stare-down game with oncoming trains. Others put rocks along the metal rail ribbon to watch as the engine cuts through the stones, sending them exploding and whizzing about the tracks.

Three years ago, an Escondido youth playing chicken was killed when he laid his head on the tracks in Oceanside and was struck by an Amtrak locomotive. In 1990, people were killed on two successive weekends when they brazenly played cards along the tracks in Encinitas.

And years ago, at a San Diego trestle known to teens as “the coffin,” youths climbed up beneath the open wooden framework of the bridge and stuck their heads up through the tracks as the train approached.

“Imagine the intelligence it takes to do something like that,” Martin said. “The engineers report this stuff, and are helpless to stop the train in time to do anything about it. They look down the tracks and see these heads pop up and down like those animals in that carnival game.”

By far, the most insidious flirtation with death is a practice known as “train surfing.” Popular in South America and on the East Coast, the game involves youths climbing aboard subway trains and ducking the guy wires that come at them at high speeds.

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“We haven’t seen that thing out here yet because there aren’t many guy wires across the tracks,” Martin said. “But with all the rapid transit projects popping up, train surfing is coming, rest assured of that.”

Jean Daley, a special agent for the Santa Fe Railway, has spent years pursuing the Carlsbad trestle jumpers.

“I’ve spent my whole career up there,” said the 12-year railroad security veteran. “My territory is National City to Orange County, and I’ve had to ignore everything else to get a beat on those kids.”

Still, she has seen youths ignore warnings to return time and again for yet another locomotive-defying leap.

Because jumpers are so hard to catch, Haley has made some arrests by using binoculars to isolate teens and then alerting local police, who then make the grab. Other times, she has spread thick grease on the wooden rail in the hopes of dissuading the youths from climbing there.

The tactic hasn’t been well-received by jumpers: “She must be some kind of bozo,” said one youth. “That slippery stuff is dangerous. What’s she trying to do, really get us killed?”

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Daley says she attributes such bravado to one thing: peer pressure.

“To the people who expect these young kids to tell a group of their pals, ‘I don’t want to do that, it’s too dangerous,’ or ‘My parents said not to’: Yeah, right.”

Jeff Pool, a 21-year-old Carlsbad leaper, described why he makes a dive off the Carlsbad trestle at least once a day. “I’m a thrill seeker,” he said.

Six years ago, Pool was jumping with a friend who was hit by a train. The youth’s arm was paralyzed. Still, that doesn’t faze Pool.

“The guy just panicked,” he explained. “He didn’t think he had enough room to be on the bridge with a train. So he ran. That won’t happen to me. I know these trains.”

The younger boys also say they’re not swayed by “scare stories” dreamed up by police. Some have even taken to standing on the bridge inches away from the passing trains. Or jumping at night, when distances are harder to judge and everything gets spooky.

Their mascot is a headless snake, found decapitated on the tracks, which they hang on a nearby bridge post.

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“My Mom jumped here as a kid,” said bare-chested Justin Vallez. “She doesn’t mind me doing it. She told me just to not get killed.”

Lisa Vallez, Justin’s mother, said in a telephone conversation that Justin never jumped from the trestle when a train was near. As with many teens, she said, a lot of what her son says is exaggerated: “He’s all talk, no action.”

When told that Justin had jumped inches from a train that very afternoon, she responded: “That close, huh? I don’t agree with that. Just jumping from the trestle is OK. Even I did it. But, in front of the train? That’s stupid. Looks like I’m going to have a talk with Justin.”

So, maybe Justin won’t be back at the trestle for a while. But that won’t stop the rest of the boys.

“These people, they don’t know what they’re talking about,” Travis Ranson said. “They’re just old.”

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