3 Derailments in 2 Days Trigger Probe

Perplexed by three Los Angeles-area train derailments within 33 hours this week, including one caused by a 14-year-old throwing a switch, officials are investigating whether freight rail safety practices need to be beefed up in the region.

Whittier police, who patrol Santa Fe Springs, on Friday announced the arrest of the boy on suspicion of train wrecking and said he apparently had easy access to a track switch and used it to derail the moving cars.

“We were very lucky that all the cars were empty,” police spokesman Alan dela Pena said. “Potentially, this could have been very bad.”

A spokesman for Union Pacific, which owns the tracks and operated all three trains, called the derailments a coincidence but said the company was nonetheless looking at improving safety procedures.

No one was hurt, and there was no major property damage.

Dela Pena said the teenager, who was not identified because he is a minor, told investigators that he was playing with the track-switching equipment when the slow-moving, 31-car train derailed Wednesday at 5:45 p.m. near Pioneer Boulevard and Los Nietos Road.

“He confessed the whole thing and described exactly how he did it,” Dela Pena said.

The teenager was released to his parents. The case is expected to be turned over to the district attorney’s office in coming days for consideration of formal charges.

Two other 14-year-old boys who were at the scene might be prosecuted on trespassing or similar charges, Dela Pena said.

“Potentially, those cars could have been filled with chemicals,” he said. “In a case like that, it could have been very, very dangerous for the public.”

The derailed freight cars struck a commercial building and knocked out utility poles.

Normally, track-switching equipment is locked. “Part of our investigation is to determine whether these switches were locked,” Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley said.

Federal officials investigating the three incidents say significantly higher rail tonnage resulting from skyrocketing Asian imports could be causing safety lapses, such as failure to secure locks or to detect cracks in heavily used tracks.

The inquiry is driven less by post-9/11 fears than by traditional concern for public safety, said Warren Flatau, spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration. “Obviously, the security issue is related to safety, but our primary focus is on trying to prevent these incidents from occurring,” he said.

Although no one was hurt in this week’s derailments, the fact that they occurred close together drew the immediate notice of the rail agency, Flatau said. “We’re not sure whether it’s a fluke or whether these events could be related to each other,” he said.

The first derailment occurred about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday near Fullerton Road and Railroad Street in the City of Industry, when 21 cars jumped the tracks, disrupting Metrolink service. Union Pacific said stress probably caused a rail to break.

Firefighters evacuated 150 to 200 people, believing a leaking tanker car to be a fire hazard. Union Pacific officials later said the substance was cooking oil that posed no danger.

The next wreck was a six-car derailment in Mira Loma about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday that forced the closure of one of Riverside County’s busiest intersections during the morning commute.

The low-speed derailment happened in a switching yard at 4500 Etiwanda Ave. and was caused by human error, Union Pacific’s Bromley said. Two of the cars derailed on an overpass near Van Buren Boulevard and Etiwanda

“Absolutely it’s unusual” to have a cluster of derailments, Bromley said. “This happens now and again in our system. It’s certainly not indicative of an ominous trend.”

Omaha-based Union Pacific owns 33,000 miles of track in the Western United States and handles the vast majority of freight rail traffic in Los Angeles, about 90 trains daily, Bromley said.

Both he and Flatau noted that Union Pacific is running record levels of traffic. “We want to make sure: Are their staffing levels OK? Are there new people working? Do they have enough equipment?” Flatau said.

The railroad hired 5,500 new workers last year for train crews to handle added loads. “We’re always concerned about safety,” Bromley said. “It’s never as good as we want it to be.”