Recent derailment evokes memory of Nevada's worst rail disaster

On Saturday, Dec. 27, 2008, 15 cars of a westbound Union Pacific freight train derailed in Palisade Canyon about 30 miles southwest of Elko in northeastern Nevada. No one was injured in the derailment, which began in a tunnel.

Several cars of immobilized train stopped over a steel bridge spanning the Humboldt River. Two hours later, the bridge, its superstructure weakened from impact and carrying the weight of the cars, collapsed into the river. This considerably complicated the railroad's cleanup and repair efforts.

Several trains have derailed in Palisade Canyon since the Central Pacific Railroad laid the first track through that starkly beautiful gorge in late 1868. One of those wrecks " the worst railroad disaster in Nevada " comes to mind especially. It also involved a bridge over the Humboldt, and it happened only six miles southwest of the recent wreck site.

On Aug. 12, 1939, also a Saturday, the westbound streamliner City of San Francisco derailed at about 60 mph. Two dozen passengers and crewmen died, and at least 100 others were injured. The severity of that crash also was made much worse by the collapse of a bridge.

During the cleanup and reconstruction activities at both sites, westbound trains used a second nearby track that normally is reserved for eastbound travel (the westbound and eastbound tracks are connected by several crossovers between Winnemucca and Wells). This useful "paired track" arrangement was initiated temporarily in 1918 and has been in effect continuously since 1924.

In that era, the westbound track was owned by Southern Pacific (until 1996) and the eastbound by the Western Pacific (until 1982). Today, both of those railroad lines belong to the Union Pacific.

December's train accident is reminiscent of the much more serious wreck almost 70 years earlier. The most symbolic difference between those two events is that grain was the only thing spilled during the recent derailment, whereas considerable blood was spilled in the ghastly 1939 wreck.