Ed -- Is this what you were referring to?

"The safety record from the Oil Cans has been very good, and there have been very few derailments that have amounted to anything. One reason for this record is the inspections done by the railroad. Also, Shell regularly replaces all the knuckles on the cars, greatly reducing the chance of pull aparts. On a regular maintenance schedule, the cars are taken to the GATX facility near West Colton Yard for a complete servicing, where brakes, bearings and all other safety components are checked over.

The loaded Cans derailed a half dozen cars on a sun kink at Warren, on the east slope of the Tehachapis in the mid 1980s, but no oil spilled. On July 12, 1987, the loads derailed in Lancaster in their worst accident to date. The train was going south between Rosamond and Lancaster near the east switch of Oban at 3:30a.m. An automobile had run off the road moments before the Cans arrived and knocked the tracks out of alignment. The four lead units (8362/7308/8232/9291) and first three blocks of cars derailed. Nine of the tank cars reptured, and more than 66,000 gallons of crude spilled onto the desert. With the resulting mess, it took the SP almost two full days to open up the railroad. The clean-up took much longer. Meanwhile, SP's trains were rerouted either via Barstow on the Santa Fe or down the Coast Line."

Read more: [sptco.proboards.com]

Found via ["southern pacific" crash lancaster "tank cars" 1977..1992]

BTW -- What's MNGV?

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Ed Workman Wrote:
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> In the 80s IIRC [ and I might not, but my low
> google skill level did not let me find original
> news stories] A coupla drunk guys sped east on one
> of the letter avenues north of Lancaster- not
> quite to Oban. The vehicle crashed the barrier, as
> the Ave dead ended at the hiway parallel to the SP
> , hit the track and knocked it out of alignment,
> this in the wee hours after the bars closed. The
> oil train- loads I'm pretty sure- formed an
> accordian on the RoW, such as seen at Lac M.
> No fire and I don't think a major spill even.
> After that I figured TankTrains were safe- Who
> Knew?
> As for coal, SP route was the longest, steepest
> way to get from say Utah to So CA. The later MNGV
> trains were an inspired operation - send coal,
> bring back taconite pellets, and fewer mountains
> to surmount.