Crews Cleaning Up After ACE Train Derailment Injures 9

Updated 3:30 p.m. Tuesday

Crews worked throughout the day Tuesday to clear a historic stretch of railway outside Fremont as investigators look into the cause of a Monday evening commuter train derailment in which a car plunged from the rails into an adjacent creek, injuring nine people.

Service on the Altamont Commuter Express, which runs from Stockton to San Jose, remained shut down Tuesday as crews prepared to pull a derailed car from the bed of Alameda Creek. Highway 84, or Niles Canyon Road, was also shut down between Fremont and Sunol.

Of the nine hurt when the car toppled into the creek bed, four were injured seriously. At least two were reportedly still hospitalized Tuesday. The Federal Railroad Administration is investigating the incident.

The derailment occurred about 7:30 p.m. Monday as the eastbound train, carrying about 200 passengers, wound its way through Niles Canyon about five miles outside of Fremont and two miles west of Sunol.

That section of the Union Pacific-owned track, along the original route of the Transcontinental Railroad, parallels both the creek and Highway 84.

The train, which ACE says was traveling at about 35 mph at the time of the crash, apparently hit a mudslide that had pushed a tree and other debris onto the tracks. That sent the lead car tumbling into the storm-swollen creek, where it was partially submerged.

Sgt. J.D. Nelson, of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, said two deputies were in the area and were the first on the scene after the wreck, which had occurred on the opposite bank of the creek from the heavily traveled highway.

“Clearly they had a very chaotic scene” as they crossed the creek in the dark, Nelson said.

“You got people that are screaming, they had to break windows to get people out of the overturned car,” Nelson said. “They gotta figure out how to get everybody off this train that’s on its side out of the train that’s upright, down the tracks, then get them across the water.”

Passengers uninjured in the accident had to wait as long as two hours at the scene before they were taken by bus to the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton. From there, they had to arrange their own rides home.

Passenger Kathy Heilmann said that when the train came to a stopped, “it felt to me like the conductor slammed on the brakes, and then a moment later we hit something. So it was an abrupt stop. The train jerked back and forth quite a bit and I noticed almost immediately the smell of eucalyptus, like it was freshly cut. I later recognized that was from the trees that we plowed through.”

John Wong, a passenger who was headed home to Pleasanton, said he was dozing on the train’s last car, but was jolted awake by a sudden stop. He said it wasn’t clear what the trouble was until first responders entered the car.

“Everybody was just wondering what was going on, then one paramedic and one firefighter came on board to check if everyone was OK,” Wong said. After another half hour, passengers were allowed to detrain, then walk back along the tracks where they waited for the buses to Pleasanton.

“I’ll be back on that train as soon as it’s running,” Wong said. But it’s not exactly clear yet how long that will be.

Union Pacific said crews will be working throughout Tuesday and possibly into Wednesday to clear the tracks and make sure they’re safe to travel.

The main challenge, railroad spokesman Francisco Castillo said, is the terrain at the accident site and the position of the car that toppled off the tracks.

“It’s down the creek, it’s about 50 feet away from the track,” Castillo said. “It’s pretty steep. That’s only one car that’s down the creek and then the other four remain at the top on the tracks with one of them derailed.”

Inspectors for the California Public Utilities Commission are on the scene. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was monitoring the situation but as of Tuesday morning had not dispatched a team to look at the crash site.

The Altamont Corridor Express began service in 1998 and runs four round trips each weekday between Stockton and San Jose. Ridership on the service was estimated to have been at 1.2 million annual trips in 2014.