This explosion, which threw heavy steel and started fires a half mile away, on the other side of the Columbia River, also destroyed the Roundhouse, and the shops for the electric motors that had been used on Stevens’ Pass. It happened on the lunch hour, which is why the butcher’s bill is so low.
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=8154
Wow, vandalism has been a source of some accidents, but there are not many instances of deliberate sabotage on modern RRs. The Amtrak derailment in Arizona comes to mind as well as the infamous City of San Francisco incident in 1939.
DON’T PANIC! Vic, and the check is in the mail, I’m from the government and here to help you!
Never the less quite a show. Never heard about it in So Cal! Interesting.
Paul
Interesting. I don’t remember hearing about it either. Today the talking heads on cable news would be anglicizing it to death for weeks and there would be Youtube video!
Title might be better as “possible sabotage”, seems the case was not solved and sabotage is a “best guess” in the absence of any evidence as to the cause. Must have been one hell of a bang though.
One reason it may not have gotten a lot of coverage was that the country was in the midst of the Watergate crisis. Richard Nixon would resign just three days later.
Steve Pearson said:
Title might be better as “possible sabotage”, seems the case was not solved and sabotage is a “best guess” in the absence of any evidence as to the cause. Must have been one hell of a bang though.
"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? Sherlock Holmes, via Doyle.
Steve, I appreciate your skepticism, but I was there. I grew up and lived at the time, less than 2 miles from Appleyard. There was no doubt in any of the investigators that this was the result of sabotage. As noted in the article, the only way that car could go off is if it was set off by external force.
And yes, it was a HELL of a BANG!
Gregory Hile said:
One reason it may not have gotten a lot of coverage was that the country was in the midst of the Watergate crisis. Richard Nixon would resign just three days later.
Possibly another reason was that it happened in a small town in a remote western State. Things were different back in 1974. 