I remember having to stay in the Owens Valley an extra day or two because I-5 was closed to let the fire burn out.

Two weeks later on February 14th another BNSF train ran away, this time in St. Paul, Minnesota. There are several routes that drop off the bluff down into the Mississippi River Valley. The grades are only 1% or so, but it isn't unusual to find 10,000 ton trains behind a couple units. This runaway somehow made it down the hill, through several 15 mph crossovers into the CP-SOO (former MILW) yard, down an empty RIP track (scary at 5 mph) before colliding with several yard engines in front of the yard office during a shift change. The BNSF crew was injured but did survive, several Soo yard employees were injured, including a conductor that was trapped under a derailed car of soybean meal who almost suffocated between the meal and spilled diesel before fireman chiseled enough frozen ground from under the car to get him out.

The cause of both runaways was a kinked brake pipe (actually a hose due to the cushion draft gear arrangement) on the head end of the train which prevented the rear of the train from going into emergency. If I recall, the cars were similar ATSF boxes of the same design or order.

There was a substantial amount of discussion following both accidents when it became obvious that the engineer only had control of the brakes on the first few cars. I was then working as a conductor where my train more likely did not have two-way EOT capability, and many times was a "dumb" FRED without telemetry, coming down the same hill into St. Paul and into the same yard. Some of the wreckage was still there, covered with tarps, and watched over 24 hours a day by private security.

When the railroads began to remove cabooses, the Canadians insisted on hot box detectors on the heavy traffic mainlines, and EOTs with two-way capability (dynamite FREDs), but strangely a red light for a marker was of little concern and a reflector was all that was required. The US did not have as much common sense and foresight, and it took these two accidents resulting in the death of two railroaders and serious injuries to many others before the FRA took action and forced US railroads to buy and use EOTs with two-way capability. Ironically, the Cajon runaway did have a two-way FRED, but it would not arm and railroad rules at the time did not require it to be armed to proceed.

May we always remember those who were lost and injured that resulted in changes making it now safer for all of us.