On May 12, 1989, at 7:36 a.m. a 6-locomotive/69-car Southern Pacific freight train carrying trona lost control while descending Cajon Pass, derailed on an elevated curve, and plowed into a residential area on Duffy Street. The conductor, head-end brakeman, and two residents were killed in the crash. Two weeks later on May 25, 1989, at 8:05 a.m. a petroleum pipeline burst at a point on the curve where the derailment happened, ignited into a large fire that burned for close to seven hours and emitted a plume of smoke three hundred feet into the air. By the time the fire was out, it had fatally burned two people alive, and destroyed eleven more houses and 21 cars. Over 25 years later this site has no markers, no memorial, it’s time to remember the victims and survivors of this disaster.
This is historical material “frozen in time”. The website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work.
