Crime Freed Runaway Boxcar

DAYTON - Some time around 11:30 last Tuesday night, someone uncoupled Union Pacific car # BF-100-48, removed the chocks from its front wheel, stepped onto the small ladder in the front of the car and force-snapped the padlocked cable tether to release the brake.

Somehow, the derail in­stalled on the tracks failed as the car rolled over it and tore it loose. Almost imme­diately,

BF-100-48 started its dangerous, uncontrolled trek from its position at the Seneca plant at the east end of Dayton.

Filled with 100 tons of seed, it first rolled down where the mainline tracks dip toward the unprotected signal-less Fourth Street crossing and began to pick up speed through one unguarded downtown crossing after another: Third Street, Second Street, First Street.

The countdown of its run­away journey had begun. By the time it had crossed the Touchet River and reached the twelfth crossing in Dayton city limits at Pit­man Road, the car's heft must have pushed its velocity to at least 30 miles per hour - al­ready deadly - with only the sound of its squealing wheels as a stealthy prelude to its quickening approach.

"If any motorist had crossed the tracks, they would have been taken out," Sheriff Walt Hessler said. "This is very, very serious. People walk up and down the tracks (parallel to Com­mercial Street) downtown all the time. It not only endan­gered local people but it also crossed Highway 124 and could have done any amount of damage."

Hessler said the inten­tional release of the brake is malicious mischief, while allowing the car to roll down the tracks counts as reckless endangerment. If a motorist had been hit on any of the two dozen crossings be­tween

Dayton and Prescott, the charge would have been worse and in case of a fatal­ity, it would have been ve­hicular homicide. Once out of Dayton, the car continued its acceler­ating escapade where the tracks enter the rural part of Columbia County toward Huntsville and Waitsburg. Fueled by the 550-foot drop in elevation between Dayton and Prescott, it picked up more and more speed, but the weight of its seed cargo kept its wheels tightly on the aging tracks to prevent derailment.

By this time, Columbia County Sheriff's dispatcher Steven Butler had already had his first call about the runaway colossus. As soon as it became evident the un­stoppable

car was heading toward neighboring Walla Walla County, he called his counterpart there.

When Walla Walla Coun­ty Sheriff's deputies arrived in the Waitsburg area, the car had made its way past more rural crossings and exceeded speeds of 50 miles per hour. They followed it down Bolles Road, where it emerged from the tree-lined Touchet River basin and headed through the wheat fields for the Highway 124 crossing by the Zuger family ranch. It rushed by at close to freeway speed with neither lights nor horn to signal equally fast-moving motorists. Around midnight, the car careened through Prescott where it woke up more resi­dents, until it passed city limits beyond the high school ball fields and met a graded, uphill curve that finally be­gan to slow it down. Walla Walla Sheriff's Dispatch had alerted Tim Mayberry from Northwest Grain Growers in Prescott who caught up with deputies on Lower Waitsburg Road where they determined the car had not crested the grade toward Walla Walla and must have rolled back into Prescott.

At least twice, the car passed back and forth through Prescott between grades. On its last ascent toward Walla Walla, within eyeshot of the Tigers' baseball field, May­berry jumped on the car and turned the wheel to secure the brake. "I waited until it slowed, grabbed the ladder and stepped up," Mayberry said. "It was pretty scary. Gets your blood pumping." The Columbia County Sheriff's report said Seneca plant personnel confirmed the car was chocked and tethered. "Car was loaded with seed. It was coupled to the other car. Had chocks set and cable lock wrapped around brake," according to the report. "Reason they know this for sure is they wanted to uncouple it yesterday (Tues­day)

and couldn't find the key. They contacted one of the workers, who told them where they key was, and when they went to unlock it, the railcar was gone."

In addition to the tether and the chocks, the tracks in front of the car were equipped with an older-style derail­ing device that would have simply forced the car to keel over before it had a chance to run away. But somehow the device failed, said Mark Ready, general manager of the Palouse River Coulee City Railroad, the Twin Falls, Idaho-based subsidiary of WATCO, the firmthat man­ages the rail freight operation on the Touchet Valley tracks. Ready said incidents like last week's happen occasion­ally despite the three security devices used on freight cars. "We were all extremely relieved that nobody was hurt and nothing was damaged," he said. "For something to get through that much protection is rare, but we're constantly looking for ways to prevent such events."

Ready said his company has already put a heavier chain to secure the brake wheel and will soon install a rail skate that "chocks" cars with their own weight and can't be removed by hand unless the car itself is rolled back. The company will also install a heavier "derail" de­vice on the tracks. "Our main concern is that we do everything we can to make sure this type of thing doesn't happen again," he said. Parked on a side track in Prescott Wednesday after­noon, FB-100-48 still had the tether cable partly attached to the back of the car with one cable end ripped and the padlock still intact.

Hessler said the incident remains under investigation, but he suspects it may not be long before his office finds a suspect. "They're going to brag about cutting it loose, and it's only a matter of time before it comes back to us," he said.