Railroad Tampering Suspected In Garland Train Derailment

February 5, 2008

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Local authorities are warning officers to be on the lookout after a minor train derailment in Garland was believed to have been caused by someone tampering with the track.

The October incident on a Kansas City Southern line is being investigated by the federal joint terrorism task force.

“It could have been very serious,” said Officer Joe Harn, a Garland police spokesman. “Does it tie in to any terrorist group or something? Right now, we simply don’t know. Is the possibility there? Certainly it is.”

The Garland derailment, which caused about $5,000 in damage, happened about the same time as two other incidents of railroad tampering in Chicago and Los Angeles that could have caused a derailment, according to a confidential law enforcement bulletin.

There have been prior incidents in which tampering with a rail line has had devastating consequences. In 1995, a passenger train derailed and plunged into a dry riverbed in Arizona after someone sabotaged part of the track. One person was killed and 65 others were injured.

In the Garland incident, somebody laid railroad spikes against a switch in an apparent effort to cause a derailment, authorities said. One train came through and forced the spikes down, causing the switch to shift slightly. That caused the next train that came through to derail, police said.

“It did not fall off the tracks and went for something like three-quarters of a mile before it got to another switching area and the train was back on the tracks,” Officer Harn said.

The Chicago incident occurred in September when someone removed rail spikes from ties on one side of the track on the approach to an overpass above a highway. The removal of the spikes “left the rail unsecured and vulnerable to shifting that could have caused a train to derail,” the bulletin said.

Authorities found a tool designed for track maintenance not far from where the spikes had been removed, the bulletin said.

The next month, someone removed clips used to secure cross ties from a curved section of elevated track on a commuter rail line north of downtown Los Angeles.

In the Los Angeles and Chicago incidents, the clips and spikes that had been removed were found in the area, the bulletin said. The bulletin said that authorities had not found any evidence of terrorist links to the two incidents.

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