Roseville Yard Disaster: Memories smolder 50 years after ammo train eruption
ROSEVILLE – It's been called the disaster lost in history: A local town, long before it became a bustling city, was rocked by explosions.
Fifty years ago on Friday, a rail car carrying bombs bound for Vietnam exploded in Roseville.
The memories of the incident are still smoldering.
"As the railroad grew, Roseville grew," said Leroy Mohorich, a docent for Roseville's Carnegie Museum.
Roseville has always been known as a railroad town, with the Union Pacific railyards sitting right in the middle of downtown.
But 50 years ago, it was the site of one of the worst disasters in the region's history.
"It must have been a pretty frightening thing," Mohorich said.
On Saturday, April 28, 1973, many people were startled by the sound of explosions and the ground shaking.
"People in the morning just waking up not knowing what's really going on, wondering what's happening," Mohorich said.
The blasts were coming from a train carrying thousands of bombs and ammunition rounds being shipped overseas to fight the war in Vietnam.
"27 boxcars carrying 250-pound bombs caught fire," Mohorich said. "It was like a chain reaction, one car after the next."
Roseville's Carnegie Museum has a display commemorating the disaster – including one of the blown-up bombs.
"It was basically split open from the force of the explosion," Mohorich said.
They also have some of the shrapnel that was scattered across miles in each direction, damaging homes and businesses.
"The little town of Antelope, right across the tracks, was leveled," Mohorich said.
More than 50 people were injured.
"No one was killed, miraculously," Mohorich said.
In recent years, more bombs have been discovered underground and have been removed.
Hazardous materials are still transported through the railyards, and emergency warning sirens are in place.
"I think there's been quite a few enhancements in terms of rail safety and monitoring," Mohorich said.
It's a decades-old disaster now in danger of being forgotten.
"It seems like so long ago, a lot of people aren't aware of it," Mohorich said.
The 6-mile-long Roseville railyards are the largest in the west and nearly 98 percent of all rail traffic in the region travels across its tracks.
