3 Killed in Runaway Freight Car Accident

Three people were killed Thursday when one of five runaway freight cars was automatically derailed at an intersection in Colton, plowing over an automobile and into a building, a Santa Fe Railway spokesman said.

The San Bernardino County coroner’s office has not determined the identities of the three victims, but Santa Fe spokesman Tom Buckley said they apparently included an occupant of the auto, a pedestrian and a person in the building.

He said the chain-reaction accident began when three rail cars loaded with scrap metal rolled off a Union Pacific siding and banged into two hopper cars standing on a Santa Fe track. All five cars kept rolling down the track, Buckley said, until they reached an intersection where the first car was forced off the track by a device called a “derail.”