SP Derailment - Spadra, California - March 1973

Sometime in the wee smalls of March 24, 1973, a Southern Pacific westbound freight was descending the 1%  grade of Pomona Hill, when a broken axle caused a truck to derail and start bouncing on the ties. When the offending car hit the timbers of the Temple Avenue grade crossing,  it pulled it, and the following boxcar and caboose, off of the track, and onto the ground. There were no fatalities. The N&W car on the north side of the track almost made it onto Valley Blvd. Damage to the track was minimal, and the first train to clear was the eastbound MSE (Merchandise Special East,) with U33C 8764. The MSE was the hottest train of the morning rush, and later morphed into the two symbol freights, the LAEST, and LAHOT. In the bottom photo in the backgound is the long gone Quaas Egg Ranch, sandwiched between the tracks, Valley Blvd., and Pomona Blvd. The western Pomona valley was still mostly agricultural then. Spadra was once a stop on the Butterfield Stage, and was the railhead of the building Southern Pacific Sunset Route in 1874.


Another informative addendum from SLOCNDR on Altamont Press:


"The Conductor on this derailment was Floyd "Buddy" Clark. He had 2 sons(KC and CC) working for the SP at the time. One of the sons was on a job at COI when this derailment occurred. When he got news of the incident, he ran to his car in order to drive out to the derailment site. When he was close to his car the ass't trainmaster asked where he thought he was going in such a hurry? KC said he was going to the derailment site and the ass't trainmaster said "no you're not". KC said "watch me"... and got in his car and took off. Someone finally calmed the ass't trainmaster down, and then told him why KC had gone to the derailment site. Nothing more was ever said. "