Having been a volunteer firefighter, I learned some interesting factoids. When wood is heated & cooled many times over, it can lower the ignition temperature & convert the wood into a substance called "pyrophoric carbon". Instead of igniting at a temperature of 700°-900°, pyrophoric carbon ignites at 200°-300°, which could have easily happened due to the exposure of wood to heated metal caused by braking. My hat is off to my late former fire chief, Manny Ennis, for his invaluable training. God rest ye, Manny.
Thank you for the additional information. I wonder if this was as well understood back in 1973 when this happened. It truly sounds like your chief taught you well.
Wow! I didn’t know that wood’s composition could change like that. My BIL was a volunteer firefighter too. Years ago, we donated my old car to his department. He told us that it was used to practice rescues with equipment after being hit, rescues after being rolled, and finally to extinguish a car fire. They definitely got good use out of it. I don’t think he fights fires anymore, but I think he’s helped train newer EMTs for the department.
I love how Fascinating Horror sets the context for these disasters so extensively. It really helps you understand the significance and reasons of these events on a deeper level.
So rare to hear a story on this channel where there's not a clear fault of negligence or apathy, just a true freak accident (as far as we know I guess)
I wish I could find pictures of the individual cars in this consist though. I still wonder due to the heavy braking, if they ran a hot box, but that's only possible if they had friction bearings and not roller bearing
It is refreshing to watch one of FH's vids where some poor bloke was NOT blamed, and/or some rich corporation got a conviction of murder/manslaughter overturned.
I really appreciate your accuracy in your reporting of these events. I was 5 to 8 miles away from this event on top of a ladder, had just glanced at my watch at exactly 8:03 am when it happened. The concussion from the first blast was so intense as to almost throw me to the ground, even at that distance! The second a few minutes later was just as intense. I decided it was time to get down and find out what was happening. I really thought at the time that we were at war!
I appreciate this mans research into subjects. As a rail enthusiast, its good to see a TH-camr outside the railfan community talk about an incident, with accuracy. Too many times I see people get wrong names, or butcher events to squeeze as much info in a small amount of time. Keep up the good work!
Was Mr Patterson driving a right-hand-steering vehicle? That's what it shows in the video 😂 I'm not really nit picky but when I saw this comment I just had to 😂😂
My brother was on I- 80 on his motorcycle and saw smoke ahead. He didn't think much of it till he was close enough to determine it was the raiilyard. He had recently been in the AF at McClellan and knew what was shipped in by rail so he wound it wide open to put distance between it and him. The explosions started just before he got home several miles away. On getting there, his friend had already set up chairs and a beer cooler in the front yard to watch. His friend was still in the AF and knew exactly what was in the yard, saying the AF was informed of the fire almost immediately, and friends there phoned him and told him to bug out as they knew he lived nearby. My brother said it was the biggest fireworks show he'd ever seen. He currently lives in Antelope and says that railyard is the one thing he's scared of around there.
I live not too far from this same railyard today. A few years ago, I was living in Lincoln (just a few miles away), and we had an evacuation in Lincoln due to a tanker car. Luckily, it didn't explode, but we had to leave cause we were really close to it.
I used to live in antelope pretty close to the rail yard and heard about this when growing up. There was always loud bangs from the trains and box cars there that sound like little explosions in the middle of the night that used to shake the windows of my house.
YEEEESSS!!!! I grew up here! I was friends with one of the victims of the blast. She was in her kitchen, then blast, then she was waking up on the floor with no windows and shattered glass everywhere. Then she realized all she could hear was a high pitched ringing. Touched her ear, blood poured out. She never regained hearing in that ear, her ear drum reduced to a circular stub of tissue. Eventually regained some hearing from the ear facing away from the blast. But the craziest part of this story? This almost happened TWICE. This is the first. The second time, in the early 2000s, unrecovered ordinance was triggered again, started another, albeit smaller, series of explosions. (Watching now, you might mentioned it. I had to comment though!) Also, AMA about the area. Spent about 25 years growing up there. Edit: chunks of unexploded high explosive that looked exactly like chunks of gravel were found everywhere. In suburban neighborhoods. With curious kids (who were of a generation lucky enough to be given bikes and told to go explore, haha). Also, the fire: maybe brake shoes, also maybe wheel bearings. Which is a huge fire. I know from multiple workers that maintenance then was basically "do as much as possible." Not enough time by far. As a result, wheel bearings would wear to the point the axle seized up, and now, you have one single point on a mile long train that's NOT moving, and everything just melts. 3200° molten steel, throwing spark and slag. Btw my friends and I used to collect wheel bearings that fell out of the hubs along the tracks. For a hub to just lose bearings? That's serious wear.
@patmcbride9853 No matter the time or place, boys just instinctively find chunks of anything that makes a big flame or big boom... With that thought of "Man, I could do something REALLY cool with this thing..." My son's at this age. I'm just trying to help him have 10 fingers 10 years from now.
My friends were living in Antelope when they found buried bombs while they were developing homes out there. They had to be evacuated while they had an EOD team blow the bombs in a hole.
@andrewsmith2916 my friend who lived through the first blast when she was a teen was still living there when they had to detonate those. Poor lady had a panic attack for like 3 or 4 days.
At the start of this video, I thought the explosion may have been caused by something like gas or liquid fuel. Then the word bombs came up, and impending doom kicked in. It was miraculous no one was killed in this accident, and let's hope all who were injured made a full recovery. And after the annual April 1st video, it's great to have two FH videos in a row
My dad was a civil engineer. He's now in his late 80's. I have told him I'm so glad you never worked on bridges or dams. Your channel gives me stories to talk about with him. TY
Locals say at least 3home bums died...for all the normie here. This location is a very important yard for hobo/tramp/travelers for the last 100or so year.
This is a strange one, no one was lax on the job, no corners were cut, and it appears that all the equipment was in good working order. The only thing they had was a guess that it might have been sparks from the brake shoes.
My guess is cargo shifting where they couldn't see it. Might have happened up on the hill, and the materials involved had begun the chemical reaction that resulted in an explosion. Then, the fire added another component to speed up the reaction(s). Of course, you don't want to talk about that. Sweep that under the rug. File under "need to know."
@@nancysmith2295 they were transporting bombs AND the detonators on the same train in separate boxcars. The detonators were the initial car that exploded, setting the rest of the train on fire.
HOLY COW MY HOMETOWN! :D i had heard about this from my parents who worked for the railroad (not at the time of this explosion iirc) but never got a lot of details about it, just that it happened. i DO remember them finding the bombs in 1997 and could hear the booms from our house when they set them off. thanks for another great video!
I live on the edge of Antelope, close to Roseville. My dad told me about this and the non stop explosions and thinking they were being attacked. My grandfather who served in WWII knew they were military explosions, he still worked at the Air Force Base and found out what had happened very quickly.
I remember this event so clearly. I was 10 and lived in Citrus Heights. It was so loud and shook the apartment we lived in. My mom was asleep so we ran down and stayed with a neighbor.
Wow. I am a railfan myself and I had no idea this had even happened. What an incredible story. Overheated brakes as the prevailing theory...so typical in all types of railroad accidents. Sometimes, something like a hot box is simply missed, as meticulous as employees may be. I can't imagine the shockwave those people standing near that first major explosion felt.
Need to look up the West Loch Disaster in Hawaii & Port Chicago Disaster two months later, both in 1944. Additionally, the SS Badger State was transporting ammo to Vietnam through the North Pacific when rounds got loose, causing explosions, punching holes in the hull. Some twenty - odd merchant mariners died
Hey there, Juan. Fancy seeing you here. I'm your age and lived near Greenback and Dewey at the time. Our neighbor was a cameraman for Channel 3 News and brought home a few huge pieces of the exploded bombs. I didn't realize you grew up so close to Phoenix Field.
Fascinating Horror, my friend and I drove to Roseville that morning to watch and filmed some of the explosions on 8mm. We could have sent it to you for your video if we had known. That was a day to remember. We were young teens back then.
I flew over it in a UH-1. The USAF at McClellan AFB provided an on-scene command post with radios. One of the radios malfunctioned and I was flown there to see if it could be fixed on site. Unfortunately, it wasn't and required to be taken to McClellan for depot level maintenance. Later in the day, my father and I drove up to Roseville to get my grandmother and bring her down to our house outside Sacramento.
I was in a Roseville Hospital delivery room when this happened, having my first child, a son. Initially, everyone assumed the rumbling and the shaking shelves and windows was due to an earthquake. Earthquakes in that region of Calif are very rare, and it had been over 20 years since the last one was felt. Interestingly, a couple of years later, the day my second son was born at Roseville Hospital, it snowed for the first time in over 20 years. So, it's no wonder my sons are extraordinary :)
I live in Roseville a block from the rail yard. It’s huge, 915 acres, the biggest yard west of the Mississippi. The explosions are still something we talk about.
I've spent a lot of time around Roseville. It has since grown into a sprawling suburb of Sacramento, but even to this day UXO is occasionally discovered when a house or something is being built.
Just because I heard Donner Pass mentioned, you should look up the history of Donner Pass. It absolutely falls within the 'fascinating horror' category
Fun Fact: There's actually a city North of Roseville (as mentioned in this video) called Marysville, and it is named after one of the survivors of the Donner Party. She was a little girl, a toddler, when it happened. But her Husband later in her life founded the Township and named it after her.
@@dustinwashburn1283 I don’t live too far away from that area and I never knew that. Cool info! I Googled it as well and the info popped up right away. Thanks for the interesting post.
hearing that made my ears perk too; as a Californian, and if you get outside, it's almost impossible not to hear about the Donner family at some point in your life lol..
@@getsmarter5412 I went to UC Davis in the late 80s. I remember that bowling alley! I lived in Beckett Hall, and we used to go to late night bowling there some weekends.
@@CatMom-uw9jl If you ever ordered a pizza from pizza express, I might have delivered it to you! I also used to do sound systems for bands at the Coffee House, and noon quad shows!
I was 14 then and from Roseville as well, lived on Folsom Rd. across from Roseville Square. My grandfather was the "chief" (Captain) of the Roseville P.D. I haven't been back there since about 1979. Strange how so many people from Roseville are watching this video and writing comments here.
It's absolutely astounding nobody thought to not have a flammable floor on cars transporting explosives. Insane. It's so sad that so many safety regulations are written in blood and people in charge can't have the foresight to protect the public.
On British railways special vans were provided for gunpowder traffic, which had wooden floors without fixing bolts or anything metal to hold the planks in place. Even so, each van came with a pair of fisherman's rubber thigh boots, or similar, and a very large warning noticethat these boots must be worn on top of any other footwear, to further reduce the risk of sparks. Of course, during wartime there weren't enough of these special vans to go round! Indeed, I recently found the grounded body of one such van, used now as a garden shed, which stil has the cast iron warning notices in place .@@imchris5000
Thank you for this exploration of this incident! I live 6 miles from the Roseville rail yards and though I wasn't here in 1973, I vividly remember the 1997 controlled detonation of unexploded ordinance and hearing it in the middle of the night.
This is not a channel. I thought I would enjoy so much, but between his great voice and narration and his extraordinary research, it’s become one of my favorites.
A absolutely fabulous account of thus disaster . Every episode seems so much more interesting by your voice and attention to detail I'm really addicted thankyou
Your intro/background music keeps giving me music-evoked autobiographical memories of when I first moved to my farm 2 years ago. Just sitting on the porch, having a glass of wine, and watching many of episodes fascinating horror. So peaceful
This one happened a few years before I was born, but now I live only about 10km south of this large railroad yard. In fact the J.R. Davis Yard (its proper name) is the largest yard in the Western US. I've read a bit about this disaster, but I appreciate you covering it, as you went over a lot of detail I didn't know about. Thanks.
I was living in South Sacramento at that time. I was 6 years old and remember waking crying profusely, this event must have effected me more than I thought. As for many years afterwards, I was afraid of thunder, and anytime I read anything about it, I got chills. Our house had gotten cracks in the stucco from the shockwaves. Amazing that no one was killed. Praise God for that!!
There is no way a house in South Sacramento got cracks in the stucco from this event. Even the closest part of So. Sac. is about 20 miles away from where this happened. I was 18 and living in East Sacramento and didn't even hear it happening. In 1997, when they discovered the unexploded bombs, I was living less than a mile away in Citrus Heights and purposely left my windows open to hear when they exploded them, and it was just like fireworks going off; no big deal. It broke some windows in some of the houses right across Roseville Road from it, a couple of hundred feet away maybe, but that is it.
What an amazing story! I have watched many Fascinating Horror episodes and other documentaries, but the LACK of workers not properly doing their jobs or carelessly NOT following procedures, as seems to be the case here, is incredible. These workers undoubtedly saved many lives. Also, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who put this documentary together. ❤❤❤
I am an idiot, I watched and was just incredulous, a 1600 foot tower in SF and it had to be dismantled and somehow I had not heard of it. I bough it completely.
@@FranktheDachshund Me too- was wondering how in the heck I hadn't heard of it as I live in the Bay Area. To be fair I was watching it on the TV, not at the computer or phone where I could read any comments or see the description. Was confused why he was showing actors instead of the "real" people but later figured it out. Yup, he got me good. I didn't know he ever did April Fool's Day videos. Was happy to find out it was just the movie retelling. 😆
Once again, you’re covering a topic that is SO close to home for me- and yet I have never heard of this explosion before!! I don’t understand how these things can get swept under the rug so easily. Thanks so much. Really important history for us in Northern California
Thank you for this channel. I have ADHD and struggle to watch anything longer than 20 mins, but also find a lot of modern shows have really short cuts and over the top dramatisations. I really appreciate that this channel has short, but matter-of-fact documentaries that treats its audience like adults. So thank you for all the work you do.
Thank you for the research you put in, your commitment to accuracy, your soothing and not overly-dramatic narration, and your overall content which makes your channel probably the best "disaster" channel out there.
I was 7 when this happened and I won't ever forget this event. The first blast knocked me backwards off of the back of the couch (where I was sitting watching cartoons with my dad.) By the end of the day my aunt & uncle and cousins from Citrus Heights were at our house and stayed the night. My cousins still remember this event as well. Sometimes it's not too bad to be part of history.
I love everything train related, and grew up very close to Chatsworth Park in the San Fernando Valley. There was a devastating Amtrak accident there some years ago, maybe you could look into that, if not already.
I was 2, living in North Highlands when this happened. My mom said the windows shook all the way out there. I remember driving out to Denio's Farmers Market all through the 70s and seeing the remnants of the, I think it was, the general store/post office that remained. There was also a dead gnarled tree that stood for many years.
I was home on leave from Viet Nam in North Highlands, CA, ( just about 3 miles south of the town of Antelope and sleeping in on Saturday morning from being out with friends the night before til late). Around 9am my brother comes flying into my room saying "did you hear that?!?" I woke up to a low yield "WUHMP"!!! The next thing I knew I was dressed and on our roof trying to determine where the smoke was coming from, just about due north from the house. Dad, brother and I piled into the car and headed to a better vantage point, which happened to be the Elkhorn blvd. rail overpass. Got out and could see right into the Roseville switching yard and rail car after rail car were blowing up, generating huge balls of fire and sending half of a rail car body flying towards us! We decided on the better part of safety and got the hell out of there! After several days after the fires had all been put out, a carload of buddies and I toured the missing town of Roseville, Antelope and the destroyed rail cars in the switchyard, trying to determine what blew up. It wasn't until a few days after that I learned it was cars loaded with 500 lb dumb bombs that basically cooked off and deflagrated rather than detonated or I wouldn't be here to talk about it!!!
Best channel ever! Kristian even highlights the ever-present war bolstering needed to fix a gloomy economy. You have a new fan. My 84 y/o mom loves your channel, especially the content from NJ since her son survived all of those horrors. 😮
Having grown up in California namely Sacramento i have lived in Citrus Heights was very familiar with Roseville and the denios market and auction i find it very strange that i have never heard of this tragedy especially since it was only a few years before i was born. And in an area i lived in! Thanks for posting this video.
I drive on the Roseville road every day the last 17 years. I still am fascinated with the locals stories about the incident. Also co workers remember the day in 1997 when they found buried materials and had to evacuate the area to allow for the army dispose of it and how the disposal process shook their house 3 miles away.
3 miles away is a little exaggerated. I lived less than a mile away and felt the concussions, but I would not go as far as to say it "shook the house".
I still remember when I learned what the letters in the company name Sprint stood for. Blew my mind that I was so old and ever knew about the legacy of that company and how much or today's world is the way it is because o it.
That piqued my interest so I had to look it up. I had no clue "Sprint" was an acronym. And I'm in my, I'll just say, 40s! Like BASE jumping. I had NO idea that BASE was an acronym until I watched a video on, sadly, when that kind of activity "goes wrong." I was like, "Wow! I had no idea. Kinda cool." Doesn't take much for me these days. Lol. And now I know about SPRINT. 🙂
@@pyro226Yeah, they have a bunch of conduit laid under the rails for whatever they might want to do with it. Network cables turned out to be pretty profitable
I live in Roseville, CA and it's a major railroad junction for Union Pacific. Some years ago, I came across an article in a local paper about this explosion. I even had a local mention this disaster to me. How no one got outright killed from this is a miracle, that's how big it was.
I have seen short documentaries of these disasters by others but I always enjoy your take on it. I don't know what it different about your videos about these disasters but I always look forward to it each week. I think it has to do with what was learned from each disaster and what actions were put in place, if any, to prevent the next one. That end is very satisfying.
Yes! I've been requesting this one. I lived in Roseville during the90s and remember the discovery of unexploded ordinance. ETA: The first batch of ordinance was intentionally exploded in the rail yard. But the shockwave had more oomph than expected. I felt the shockwave over a mile away. The following batches were taken off site for disposal.
I live very close to Roseville, Califonia, and go there regularly. Yet this is my first time hearing about this! Nice to learn new things about my area!
I enjoy these documentaries immensely…well-paced and thorough. I will admit to smirking occasionally at the English pronunciation of American place names.
As a longtime resident of nearby Sacramento, I was unaware of this story! It's interesting to see the photos of a very sparsely populated Roseville and Antelope. I'm glad no one died. Thanks for sharing it!
I had a house about 1/4 mile from that rail yard, in the 1990's. They were doing construction on the rail yard, changing some of the tracks around, and they found an unexploded bomb that had been buried in this conflagration, and had been sitting tens of feet underground since 1973. They built berms of sandbags around the bomb, and were going to detonate it, because that was safer than moving it. I remember cops going around and asking us how many people were living in the house, and telling us about the planned explosion. It shook my whole house like someone had hit one of the beams with a sledgehammer. Luckily I had no damage, but some of my neighbors had minor damage like windows broken, cracks in stucco, etc. Later on, they found several more of the bombs - 4 or 5 in total if I remember correctly - and we had to go through the same thing over again for each one.
Always enjoy your videos. I do like the written accounts of witnesses that you add, I wonder if you’d ever add audio or video clips for more recent events. Radio reports from responders would be cool to hear too. Keep up the awesome work!
I grew up in the town of Auburn about 15 miles northeast of the railyard. I can remember the windows rattling with each explosion though I was only five at the time.
This was very interesting. Those people watching the movie got more for their ticket price; more than they bargained for. So glad no one was hurt. I can honestly say this channel is one of my very favorites! I love history and learn something every time I watch. The narrator is concise and interesting. Anyone not yet subscribed is surely missing out! ❤
I just wanted to say thank you for all these incredible videos that you compile. Almost every one of these historical episodes is of an event I have never heard of previously. So well researched and presented. Thanks again
0:20 What I want to know is why, if he was supposedly in Antelope California on that date was Lloyd Patterson operating a RIGHT HAND DRIVE CAR??? Very obvious piece of the puzzle yet it goes completely unmentioned.
Weirdly enough the thing my brain has grabbed onto from this video is the town made up of 32 structures. I'm pretty sure the tiny township where we had our holiday house (not nearly as posh as it sounds, it never even got a phone connection and a lot of the things like washing facilities were obvious add-ons) is even a few times bigger than that, but then it has some pleasant hot springs as well as lakefront land suitable for a small marina that mean it gets a little tourism even if the only place to buy things like milk is the service station. We actually used to walk out of town and down the highway to get ours at a nearby motel's on-site corner store. Anyway, considering the scale of the explosions, it's amazing no one was killed. It sounds like basically everyone did everything more or less right, which is certainly a change from a lot of other videos on this channel!
I'm from the area, and have relatives right near Antelope. The area soon had a housing boom in the late 80s, and it's now additional suburbs! Unfortunately, the area is kinda crappy unincorporated town. There was a military base that shut down I think in the 90s or early 2000s, and with it shutting down, the money left too. The whole north part of Sacramento county other than Citrus Heights is kinda crappy higher crime area cause of that.
@@rusefoxghost Uuhhh... in 1973, Antelope really wasn't even a "town", but more of just an "area". Today it is WAY larger with about 50,000 residents, but still an unincorporated city. Like any city, it has it's parts that are better and parts that are worse, but to call the whole city "crappy" is just not accurate. There are much much worse areas in the greater Sacramento area.
@@Calango741 Semantics aside, Antelope is definitely not the nicest place, really nothing along Watt Ave is. But "crappy" isn't "downright awful." I have to pay far more attention as a woman, so you probably don't care about what I have to pay attention to. I'd still go to the store in the area, especially the further from Watt I get. I just wouldn't leave anything in my car, or go out long after sunset. I mostly just hate driving there, the drivers suck and never have insurance. There are far worse places in sac county north of the river, and far nicer too. My dad once worked decades in Sac PD with his beat in Del Paso, and I know plenty of people from other law enforcement that covers the area. I know what I'm talking about in north sac.
wasn't born until well after the event, but did spend several quite a few years living in the northwest corner of Citrus Heights, right beside the railyards, and heard a few stories about it from time to time. Not from eyewitnesses, just long after the fact 'here's a cool anecdote about this area'.
I grew up in Roseville and had never heard of this disaster till now. And believe it or not, a train derailed just yesterday in the same town. Weird series of coincidences for sure, keep doing what your doing ❤
I am a weird niche history nerd. I am from Sacramento. I did a hell of a lot of schooling on exactly these kinds of scenarios for my job. HOW HAD I NEVER HEARD OF THIS?! (This channel is awesome.❤)
I lived in Roseville most of my life, though I was born after this event, but have driven by where it happened many times. It's easy to forget about this event, I tend to think more about when the mall got arson'd in I want to say 2010
Should do one on the railyard disaster in Decatur, Illinois in the 1970s several were killed. Norfolk & Western RR i think. Or Chatsworth, Il TP&W wreck in the ,1880s. I think 80 some were killed. Love the channel btw.
You do an awesome job at telling the story. Almost feel like I am there.. I often listen to your story’s with out watching the video itself and still feel as if I am there..
What is crazy to me is that I have lived in Roseville, California my whole, yet I've never ever heard of this story. I thought for sure that this had to be a different Roseville, but no. It's honestly insane to hear all these extremely familiar towns and photos all surrounded around such an event.
Whoa....I grew up in Antelope, California from 1994-2008. That is still where my childhood home is. I had heard a little bit about this story, but never thought it would appear on this channel. Surreal. P.S. - the town of Antelope came back in a big way after this incident. As of 2020, the town has almost 50,000 residents and is growing day-by-day full of parks, schools, and new subdivisions.
I was born and raised in Roseville, and was living there when the bombs exploded. The explosions were a little over a mile from where I lived. My Dad had worked for the Southern Pacific since he had come home from WWll. I was awakened when the first bomb went off. There was an AFB not too far away; McClellan AFB, and I immediately thought that a plane had crashed. When the next bomb blew I knew it was something else. I ran through the house opening all the windows so that any subsequent blasts would pass through, hoping it would be enough to keep the windows intact. As the following blasts came the Roseville P. D. began to evacuate the area. We were related to the then mayor, George Buljan, and we went to stay with his family. We were able to keep up to date on the situation. We were finally let back to our homes the next day. As soon as I could I drove through the town of Antelope. It was completely obliterated. What really amazed me was how the nearby grove of oak trees had changed. I'd watched the trees as I grew up and knew how they looked. Typical, healthy, thick oak trees. Now, after the explosions, the huge limbs on the trees had been twisted and turned in all sorts of strange ways. It was a heck of a weekend.
It’s 2:13am (BST) on 3 April here in England - I’ve just watched this in bed - here’s hoping I sleep well ! I too love your channel and always look forward to a new instalment ! Thank you !
I remember it well. Even though I lived 15+ miles away, I was awakened by the sound of the bombs exploding. The pictures on the local news and in the papers of houses standing intact but with the entire roof ripped off; or of large trees impaled by a section of rail that had been driven through the trunk are still vivid in my memory. We drove by the Roseville yard a few days after the incident and saw huge piles of destroyed rails and cars that had been pushed up to clear the way to lay new tracks and re-open the yard.
How can a witness be watching a movie at the drive-in theater during the day? I was there in nearby North Highlands, it was a Sunday morning and just return from church. My father was a fire chief of North Highlands at the time and worked with the Citrus Heights Fire District during the incident. I remember him calling home and told us to evacuate to some friends about 12 miles away. I remember FF Steve explaining years later evacuating from station 26 ( the new fire station that was flattened mentioned in this video). He had just pulled the engine out onto the apron and a shockwave leveled the steel building. That was a terrifying experience for him.
I met a firefighter that was stationed at that antelope fire station that was leveled. Most of my co-workers over the years remember that day well. I was living in antelope in 1997 when they detonated the bombs that they found buried in the rail yard. I lived several miles away but it still rattled my windows. It was reported on the news the next morning that some homes close to the 97 detonation had sustained some broken windows. Another interesting explosion happened in Roseburg Oregon in 1959. If I remember right it was a truck loaded with dynamite. That would be an interesting one to cover.
![[#2024MAMA] ROSÉ (로제), Bruno Mars - APT. | Mnet 241122 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dgGqD28J6aQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Having been a volunteer firefighter, I learned some interesting factoids.
When wood is heated & cooled many times over, it can lower the ignition temperature & convert the wood into a substance called "pyrophoric carbon". Instead of igniting at a temperature of 700°-900°, pyrophoric carbon ignites at 200°-300°, which could have easily happened due to the exposure of wood to heated metal caused by braking.
My hat is off to my late former fire chief, Manny Ennis, for his invaluable training. God rest ye, Manny.
Many thanks for this informative post. It helps explain a lot of the physics of what might have occurred.
Thank you for the additional information. I wonder if this was as well understood back in 1973 when this happened. It truly sounds like your chief taught you well.
Wow! I didn’t know that wood’s composition could change like that.
My BIL was a volunteer firefighter too. Years ago, we donated my old car to his department. He told us that it was used to practice rescues with equipment after being hit, rescues after being rolled, and finally to extinguish a car fire. They definitely got good use out of it. I don’t think he fights fires anymore, but I think he’s helped train newer EMTs for the department.
Having wood that close to sparks makes no sense regardless of metal shields
Just for comparison, is pyrophoric carbon's consistency anything like cardboard?
I love how Fascinating Horror sets the context for these disasters so extensively. It really helps you understand the significance and reasons of these events on a deeper level.
hear hear
It's the best disaster channel for explaining the history and everything surrounding the event. The best channel on yt ❤️
Yup.
Yes, he IS really good st that
Hi there - I wrote the script. I tried my best :)
So rare to hear a story on this channel where there's not a clear fault of negligence or apathy, just a true freak accident (as far as we know I guess)
Yeah that a good point
To me, it suggests a great deal of humbleness on the part of the investigators to be able to admit they don't know something.
Good comment
I wish I could find pictures of the individual cars in this consist though. I still wonder due to the heavy braking, if they ran a hot box, but that's only possible if they had friction bearings and not roller bearing
It is refreshing to watch one of FH's vids where some poor bloke was NOT blamed, and/or some rich corporation got a conviction of murder/manslaughter overturned.
Very rare to see a disaster where all possible care was taken to ensure safety, and that no one died despite the danger.
One of those one in a million occurrences.
I really appreciate your accuracy in your reporting of these events. I was 5 to 8 miles away from this event on top of a ladder, had just glanced at my watch at exactly 8:03 am when it happened. The concussion from the first blast was so intense as to almost throw me to the ground, even at that distance! The second a few minutes later was just as intense. I decided it was time to get down and find out what was happening. I really thought at the time that we were at war!
You gotta be super old
@@sooprfrek12that’s rude!
@@sooprfrek12 It really wasn't that long ago.
@@sooprfrek12
Just wait ~~~ you will have a different view of it when you get to be “super old” and it won’t seem that way at all. 😎
@@sooprfrek12he’s most likely in his mid-40s (No offense)
I appreciate this mans research into subjects. As a rail enthusiast, its good to see a TH-camr outside the railfan community talk about an incident, with accuracy. Too many times I see people get wrong names, or butcher events to squeeze as much info in a small amount of time.
Keep up the good work!
Hi, I wrote this. I'm glad you liked it :)
Mr. Fascinating Horror has a special talent for telling a story succinctly, yet thoroughly.
Was Mr Patterson driving a right-hand-steering vehicle? That's what it shows in the video 😂
I'm not really nit picky but when I saw this comment I just had to 😂😂
@@MilesL.auto-train4013 spam bot?
Or did you author his script?
If you authored his script, awesome..
If you didn't.. 🤬
@@jonslg240 Uh, yes, I wrote this.. Check the description.
My brother was on I- 80 on his motorcycle and saw smoke ahead. He didn't think much of it till he was close enough to determine it was the raiilyard. He had recently been in the AF at McClellan and knew what was shipped in by rail so he wound it wide open to put distance between it and him. The explosions started just before he got home several miles away. On getting there, his friend had already set up chairs and a beer cooler in the front yard to watch. His friend was still in the AF and knew exactly what was in the yard, saying the AF was informed of the fire almost immediately, and friends there phoned him and told him to bug out as they knew he lived nearby. My brother said it was the biggest fireworks show he'd ever seen. He currently lives in Antelope and says that railyard is the one thing he's scared of around there.
Were mortars part of the load? A buddy off PFE road pulled a mortar shell out of his yard that I assumed was outfall from this.
I live not too far from this same railyard today. A few years ago, I was living in Lincoln (just a few miles away), and we had an evacuation in Lincoln due to a tanker car. Luckily, it didn't explode, but we had to leave cause we were really close to it.
I used to live in antelope pretty close to the rail yard and heard about this when growing up. There was always loud bangs from the trains and box cars there that sound like little explosions in the middle of the night that used to shake the windows of my house.
YEEEESSS!!!! I grew up here! I was friends with one of the victims of the blast.
She was in her kitchen, then blast, then she was waking up on the floor with no windows and shattered glass everywhere.
Then she realized all she could hear was a high pitched ringing. Touched her ear, blood poured out.
She never regained hearing in that ear, her ear drum reduced to a circular stub of tissue. Eventually regained some hearing from the ear facing away from the blast.
But the craziest part of this story?
This almost happened TWICE.
This is the first. The second time, in the early 2000s, unrecovered ordinance was triggered again, started another, albeit smaller, series of explosions. (Watching now, you might mentioned it. I had to comment though!)
Also, AMA about the area. Spent about 25 years growing up there.
Edit: chunks of unexploded high explosive that looked exactly like chunks of gravel were found everywhere. In suburban neighborhoods. With curious kids (who were of a generation lucky enough to be given bikes and told to go explore, haha).
Also, the fire: maybe brake shoes, also maybe wheel bearings. Which is a huge fire.
I know from multiple workers that maintenance then was basically "do as much as possible."
Not enough time by far.
As a result, wheel bearings would wear to the point the axle seized up, and now, you have one single point on a mile long train that's NOT moving, and everything just melts.
3200° molten steel, throwing spark and slag.
Btw my friends and I used to collect wheel bearings that fell out of the hubs along the tracks.
For a hub to just lose bearings? That's serious wear.
Kids I knew collected bigger chunks of explosive until adults stepped in and handed the stuff over to authorities.
@patmcbride9853 No matter the time or place, boys just instinctively find chunks of anything that makes a big flame or big boom...
With that thought of "Man, I could do something REALLY cool with this thing..."
My son's at this age.
I'm just trying to help him have 10 fingers 10 years from now.
@@peteneblett9344 If the internet existed when I was in high school, I would probably be missing digits or dead.
My friends were living in Antelope when they found buried bombs while they were developing homes out there. They had to be evacuated while they had an EOD team blow the bombs in a hole.
@andrewsmith2916 my friend who lived through the first blast when she was a teen was still living there when they had to detonate those. Poor lady had a panic attack for like 3 or 4 days.
At the start of this video, I thought the explosion may have been caused by something like gas or liquid fuel. Then the word bombs came up, and impending doom kicked in. It was miraculous no one was killed in this accident, and let's hope all who were injured made a full recovery. And after the annual April 1st video, it's great to have two FH videos in a row
Look up the Port Chicago disaster. I didn't read about that until the 80s.
My dad was a civil engineer. He's now in his late 80's. I have told him I'm so glad you never worked on bridges or dams. Your channel gives me stories to talk about with him. TY
I am glad that no one was killed. Thank you for posting.
Yes! That was a miracle in and of itself.
I do believe one man died of a heart attack.
I lived in Florin, a good 15 miles South of the rail yard, and we heard every explosion all day long. Some were smaller, and some were massive.
Locals say at least 3home bums died...for all the normie here. This location is a very important yard for hobo/tramp/travelers for the last 100or so year.
This is a strange one, no one was lax on the job, no corners were cut, and it appears that all the equipment was in good working order. The only thing they had was a guess that it might have been sparks from the brake shoes.
And in addition, all this in the 1970's when cutting corners and oversight was commonplace.
Yeah, it's quite surprising! Especially since transport fuel was expensive so you'd think they would have cheaped out, but..!
Brake fire was the local story when it happened, I lived nearby and heard the whole thing as it went off. Fun day .....
My guess is cargo shifting where they couldn't see it. Might have happened up on the hill, and the materials involved had begun the chemical reaction that resulted in an explosion.
Then, the fire added another component to speed up the reaction(s).
Of course, you don't want to talk about that. Sweep that under the rug. File under "need to know."
@@nancysmith2295 they were transporting bombs AND the detonators on the same train in separate boxcars. The detonators were the initial car that exploded, setting the rest of the train on fire.
HOLY COW MY HOMETOWN! :D i had heard about this from my parents who worked for the railroad (not at the time of this explosion iirc) but never got a lot of details about it, just that it happened. i DO remember them finding the bombs in 1997 and could hear the booms from our house when they set them off. thanks for another great video!
I live on the edge of Antelope, close to Roseville. My dad told me about this and the non stop explosions and thinking they were being attacked. My grandfather who served in WWII knew they were military explosions, he still worked at the Air Force Base and found out what had happened very quickly.
I remember this event so clearly. I was 10 and lived in Citrus Heights. It was so loud and shook the apartment we lived in. My mom was asleep so we ran down and stayed with a neighbor.
Wow. I am a railfan myself and I had no idea this had even happened. What an incredible story. Overheated brakes as the prevailing theory...so typical in all types of railroad accidents. Sometimes, something like a hot box is simply missed, as meticulous as employees may be. I can't imagine the shockwave those people standing near that first major explosion felt.
Need to look up the West Loch Disaster in Hawaii & Port Chicago Disaster two months later, both in 1944. Additionally, the SS Badger State was transporting ammo to Vietnam through the North Pacific when rounds got loose, causing explosions, punching holes in the hull. Some twenty - odd merchant mariners died
@@jamessimms415 port Chicago is crazy and nobody really even knows about it
About 10 miles away in Orangevale, shook the entire house! 10 years old at the time. Thanks for posting!
Hey there, Juan. Fancy seeing you here. I'm your age and lived near Greenback and Dewey at the time. Our neighbor was a cameraman for Channel 3 News and brought home a few huge pieces of the exploded bombs. I didn't realize you grew up so close to Phoenix Field.
Fascinating Horror, my friend and I drove to Roseville that morning to watch and filmed some of the explosions on 8mm. We could have sent it to you for your video if we had known. That was a day to remember. We were young teens back then.
I flew over it in a UH-1. The USAF at McClellan AFB provided an on-scene command post with radios. One of the radios malfunctioned and I was flown there to see if it could be fixed on site. Unfortunately, it wasn't and required to be taken to McClellan for depot level maintenance. Later in the day, my father and I drove up to Roseville to get my grandmother and bring her down to our house outside Sacramento.
I’ll pretend it was fate that I was still up at 4:30am so I could watch this right away.
The power of ̶d̶e̶l̶u̶s̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶ postitive thinking!
❤
@@sabishiihito Lol.
I was in a Roseville Hospital delivery room when this happened, having my first child, a son. Initially, everyone assumed the rumbling and the shaking shelves and windows was due to an earthquake. Earthquakes in that region of Calif are very rare, and it had been over 20 years since the last one was felt.
Interestingly, a couple of years later, the day my second son was born at Roseville Hospital, it snowed for the first time in over 20 years. So, it's no wonder my sons are extraordinary :)
That's a birth story for the ages!
Good for You, and your Sons!!!❤❤❤
A son so powerful it caused an explosion
God of war Mars and a weather God probably Norse were probably visiting day your son's were born.
@@WindTurbineSyndromelol you mean Ares and Zeus
I live in Roseville a block from the rail yard. It’s huge, 915 acres, the biggest yard west of the Mississippi. The explosions are still something we talk about.
Which part of the yard? It's about 6 miles long and covers 950 acres. I live near Roseville H.S. at the N.E. end of it all.
I've spent a lot of time around Roseville. It has since grown into a sprawling suburb of Sacramento, but even to this day UXO is occasionally discovered when a house or something is being built.
Just because I heard Donner Pass mentioned, you should look up the history of Donner Pass. It absolutely falls within the 'fascinating horror' category
Great suggestion!
Fun Fact: There's actually a city North of Roseville (as mentioned in this video) called Marysville, and it is named after one of the survivors of the Donner Party. She was a little girl, a toddler, when it happened. But her Husband later in her life founded the Township and named it after her.
@@dustinwashburn1283 I don’t live too far away from that area and I never knew that. Cool info! I Googled it as well and the info popped up right away. Thanks for the interesting post.
I rode through Donner Pass in my camper van last summer. Having read a lot about the Donner Party, I could not get out of there soon enough.
hearing that made my ears perk too; as a Californian, and if you get outside, it's almost impossible not to hear about the Donner family at some point in your life lol..
I totally remember this day. I was about 14 yo. We were evacuated and spent the day swimming in the American river. What a day!!
I too was 14 yo. We clearly heard it in Davis, downstairs at the UCD bowling alley!
@@getsmarter5412 I went to UC Davis in the late 80s. I remember that bowling alley! I lived in Beckett Hall, and we used to go to late night bowling there some weekends.
I was 7, we had moved to Davis a few months before. The explosion woke the whole house with rattling windows. I remember it like yesterday.
@@CatMom-uw9jl If you ever ordered a pizza from pizza express, I might have delivered it to you! I also used to do sound systems for bands at the Coffee House, and noon quad shows!
I was 14 then and from Roseville as well, lived on Folsom Rd. across from Roseville Square. My grandfather was the "chief" (Captain) of the Roseville P.D. I haven't been back there since about 1979. Strange how so many people from Roseville are watching this video and writing comments here.
It's absolutely astounding nobody thought to not have a flammable floor on cars transporting explosives. Insane. It's so sad that so many safety regulations are written in blood and people in charge can't have the foresight to protect the public.
wood is the cheapest nonsparking material so steel dropped on it would not make a spark and set off powder
On British railways special vans were provided for gunpowder traffic, which had wooden floors without fixing bolts or anything metal to hold the planks in place. Even so, each van came with a pair of fisherman's rubber thigh boots, or similar, and a very large warning noticethat these boots must be worn on top of any other footwear, to further reduce the risk of sparks. Of course, during wartime there weren't enough of these special vans to go round!
Indeed, I recently found the grounded body of one such van, used now as a garden shed, which stil has the cast iron warning notices in place .@@imchris5000
Thank you for this exploration of this incident! I live 6 miles from the Roseville rail yards and though I wasn't here in 1973, I vividly remember the 1997 controlled detonation of unexploded ordinance and hearing it in the middle of the night.
I lived less than a mile away in Citrus Heights and purposely stayed up and left my windows open to hear it. It was nothing like it was in 1973... 😎
My favorite morning show. The history channel can't compare. Not by a long shot.
This is not a channel. I thought I would enjoy so much, but between his great voice and narration and his extraordinary research, it’s become one of my favorites.
Never in a million years would I be hearing about my hometown in one of your videos. Thanks 😊
A absolutely fabulous account of thus disaster . Every episode seems so much more interesting by your voice and attention to detail I'm really addicted thankyou
Your intro/background music keeps giving me music-evoked autobiographical memories of when I first moved to my farm 2 years ago. Just sitting on the porch, having a glass of wine, and watching many of episodes fascinating horror. So peaceful
It's 5:58 CST and I am watching this before work while eating breakfast. No better way to start the day
Great episode! Nothing short of miraculous there were no deaths...
This one happened a few years before I was born, but now I live only about 10km south of this large railroad yard. In fact the J.R. Davis Yard (its proper name) is the largest yard in the Western US. I've read a bit about this disaster, but I appreciate you covering it, as you went over a lot of detail I didn't know about. Thanks.
I was living in South Sacramento at that time. I was 6 years old and remember waking crying profusely, this event must have effected me more than I thought. As for many years afterwards, I was afraid of thunder, and anytime I read anything about it, I got chills. Our house had gotten cracks in the stucco from the shockwaves. Amazing that no one was killed. Praise God for that!!
There is no way a house in South Sacramento got cracks in the stucco from this event. Even the closest part of So. Sac. is about 20 miles away from where this happened. I was 18 and living in East Sacramento and didn't even hear it happening.
In 1997, when they discovered the unexploded bombs, I was living less than a mile away in Citrus Heights and purposely left my windows open to hear when they exploded them, and it was just like fireworks going off; no big deal. It broke some windows in some of the houses right across Roseville Road from it, a couple of hundred feet away maybe, but that is it.
What an amazing story! I have watched many Fascinating Horror episodes and other documentaries, but the LACK of workers not properly doing their jobs or carelessly NOT following procedures, as seems to be the case here, is incredible. These workers undoubtedly saved many lives. Also, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who put this documentary together. ❤❤❤
Not as bad as that towering inferno you had yesterday.
You would think it was April Fool's Day with that video.
I am an idiot, I watched and was just incredulous, a 1600 foot tower in SF and it had to be dismantled and somehow I had not heard of it. I bough it completely.
@@FranktheDachshund Me too- was wondering how in the heck I hadn't heard of it as I live in the Bay Area. To be fair I was watching it on the TV, not at the computer or phone where I could read any comments or see the description. Was confused why he was showing actors instead of the "real" people but later figured it out. Yup, he got me good. I didn't know he ever did April Fool's Day videos. Was happy to find out it was just the movie retelling. 😆
@@FranktheDachshundwith how wild some real events he's covered are? I also bought it easily
@@FranktheDachshund you should watch last years episode on the Poseidon Adventure!
Once again, you’re covering a topic that is SO close to home for me- and yet I have never heard of this explosion before!! I don’t understand how these things can get swept under the rug so easily. Thanks so much. Really important history for us in Northern California
"swept under the rug"...?? Hardly! This is a very well known event that has had a lot of coverage through the years.
I love this channel. Cheers from orange county California 🇺🇸
Why are you awake already? Go back to bed. JK Have a great day.
Thank you for this channel. I have ADHD and struggle to watch anything longer than 20 mins, but also find a lot of modern shows have really short cuts and over the top dramatisations. I really appreciate that this channel has short, but matter-of-fact documentaries that treats its audience like adults. So thank you for all the work you do.
Thank you for the research you put in, your commitment to accuracy, your soothing and not overly-dramatic narration, and your overall content which makes your channel probably the best "disaster" channel out there.
I was 7 when this happened and I won't ever forget this event. The first blast knocked me backwards off of the back of the couch (where I was sitting watching cartoons with my dad.) By the end of the day my aunt & uncle and cousins from Citrus Heights were at our house and stayed the night. My cousins still remember this event as well. Sometimes it's not too bad to be part of history.
I love everything train related, and grew up very close to Chatsworth Park in the San Fernando Valley. There was a devastating Amtrak accident there some years ago, maybe you could look into that, if not already.
I was 2, living in North Highlands when this happened. My mom said the windows shook all the way out there. I remember driving out to Denio's Farmers Market all through the 70s and seeing the remnants of the, I think it was, the general store/post office that remained. There was also a dead gnarled tree that stood for many years.
It’s pretty nice to see this stuff explained in depth and objectively. Don’t get that much nowadays. Solid, bro.
I always enjoy a Tuesday morning video from FH
I was home on leave from Viet Nam in North Highlands, CA, ( just about 3 miles south of the town of Antelope and sleeping in on Saturday morning from being out with friends the night before til late).
Around 9am my brother comes flying into my room saying "did you hear that?!?" I woke up to a low yield "WUHMP"!!! The next thing I knew I was dressed and on our roof trying to determine where the smoke was coming from, just about due north from the house.
Dad, brother and I piled into the car and headed to a better vantage point, which happened to be the Elkhorn blvd. rail overpass.
Got out and could see right into the Roseville switching yard and rail car after rail car were blowing up, generating huge balls of fire and sending half of a rail car body flying towards us!
We decided on the better part of safety and got the hell out of there!
After several days after the fires had all been put out, a carload of buddies and I toured the missing town of Roseville, Antelope and the destroyed rail cars in the switchyard, trying to determine what blew up. It wasn't until a few days after that I learned it was cars loaded with 500 lb dumb bombs that basically cooked off and deflagrated rather than detonated or I wouldn't be here to talk about it!!!
Railroads don't seem safe any more after being a fan of this channel for awhile...
Best channel ever! Kristian even highlights the ever-present war bolstering needed to fix a gloomy economy.
You have a new fan. My 84 y/o mom loves your channel, especially the content from NJ since her son survived all of those horrors. 😮
Back to back videos, thanks!
Having grown up in California namely Sacramento i have lived in Citrus Heights was very familiar with Roseville and the denios market and auction i find it very strange that i have never heard of this tragedy especially since it was only a few years before i was born. And in an area i lived in! Thanks for posting this video.
I drive on the Roseville road every day the last 17 years. I still am fascinated with the locals stories about the incident. Also co workers remember the day in 1997 when they found buried materials and had to evacuate the area to allow for the army dispose of it and how the disposal process shook their house 3 miles away.
3 miles away is a little exaggerated. I lived less than a mile away and felt the concussions, but I would not go as far as to say it "shook the house".
Appreciate the extra episode this week ❤
I still remember when I learned what the letters in the company name Sprint stood for. Blew my mind that I was so old and ever knew about the legacy of that company and how much or today's world is the way it is because o it.
That piqued my interest so I had to look it up. I had no clue "Sprint" was an acronym. And I'm in my, I'll just say, 40s! Like BASE jumping. I had NO idea that BASE was an acronym until I watched a video on, sadly, when that kind of activity "goes wrong." I was like, "Wow! I had no idea. Kinda cool." Doesn't take much for me these days. Lol. And now I know about SPRINT. 🙂
@@Katclem77 Since you didn't list it and others will be curious: SPRINT is an acronym for "Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Networking Telephony".
@@pyro226Yeah, they have a bunch of conduit laid under the rails for whatever they might want to do with it. Network cables turned out to be pretty profitable
@@pyro226thank you!
@@pyro226 Thanks for not trying to be as mysterious as the last two.
I live in Roseville, CA and it's a major railroad junction for Union Pacific. Some years ago, I came across an article in a local paper about this explosion. I even had a local mention this disaster to me. How no one got outright killed from this is a miracle, that's how big it was.
My grandpa got blown through the garage but wasn't hurt
I have seen short documentaries of these disasters by others but I always enjoy your take on it. I don't know what it different about your videos about these disasters but I always look forward to it each week. I think it has to do with what was learned from each disaster and what actions were put in place, if any, to prevent the next one. That end is very satisfying.
Yes! I've been requesting this one. I lived in Roseville during the90s and remember the discovery of unexploded ordinance.
ETA: The first batch of ordinance was intentionally exploded in the rail yard. But the shockwave had more oomph than expected. I felt the shockwave over a mile away. The following batches were taken off site for disposal.
I worked there at that time.
The shock waves would have been a lot worse if they hadn't dug pits to explode them in. I was less than a mile away in Citrus Heights.
I live very close to Roseville, Califonia, and go there regularly. Yet this is my first time hearing about this! Nice to learn new things about my area!
Can you do the Graniteville Train Derailment and Chlorine disaster?
Perfect timing, I just got off work! Awesome work
I enjoy these documentaries immensely…well-paced and thorough. I will admit to smirking occasionally at the English pronunciation of American place names.
As a longtime resident of nearby Sacramento, I was unaware of this story! It's interesting to see the photos of a very sparsely populated Roseville and Antelope. I'm glad no one died. Thanks for sharing it!
Up through the 90s, there wasn't much in Roseville, mostly undeveloped fields. Worlds away from Roseville of today
I had a house about 1/4 mile from that rail yard, in the 1990's. They were doing construction on the rail yard, changing some of the tracks around, and they found an unexploded bomb that had been buried in this conflagration, and had been sitting tens of feet underground since 1973. They built berms of sandbags around the bomb, and were going to detonate it, because that was safer than moving it. I remember cops going around and asking us how many people were living in the house, and telling us about the planned explosion. It shook my whole house like someone had hit one of the beams with a sledgehammer. Luckily I had no damage, but some of my neighbors had minor damage like windows broken, cracks in stucco, etc. Later on, they found several more of the bombs - 4 or 5 in total if I remember correctly - and we had to go through the same thing over again for each one.
Thanks for this video of this tragedy.
Always enjoy your videos. I do like the written accounts of witnesses that you add, I wonder if you’d ever add audio or video clips for more recent events. Radio reports from responders would be cool to hear too. Keep up the awesome work!
I grew up in the town of Auburn about 15 miles northeast of the railyard. I can remember the windows rattling with each explosion though I was only five at the time.
The only channel I watch religiously and even stay up till 5 am to do so!
P.S. Literally, it’s the only reason why I’m up till 5!
This was very interesting. Those people watching the movie got more for their ticket price; more than they bargained for. So glad no one was hurt.
I can honestly say this channel is one of my very favorites! I love history and learn something every time I watch. The narrator is concise and interesting.
Anyone not yet subscribed is surely missing out! ❤
I just wanted to say thank you for all these incredible videos that you compile. Almost every one of these historical episodes is of an event I have never heard of previously. So well researched and presented. Thanks again
0:20 What I want to know is why, if he was supposedly in Antelope California on that date was Lloyd Patterson operating a RIGHT HAND DRIVE CAR??? Very obvious piece of the puzzle yet it goes completely unmentioned.
I always look forward to your posts. Thank you
Can't sleep, so here I am.
Same here! Just laying on the couch hoping for sleep to come before the sun rises.
Know that for the same reason… 😣
Me too
The length of these, and the Crime Reel are perfect for me to accomplish a short chore like dishes, fold clothes, etc.
🤝
Weirdly enough the thing my brain has grabbed onto from this video is the town made up of 32 structures. I'm pretty sure the tiny township where we had our holiday house (not nearly as posh as it sounds, it never even got a phone connection and a lot of the things like washing facilities were obvious add-ons) is even a few times bigger than that, but then it has some pleasant hot springs as well as lakefront land suitable for a small marina that mean it gets a little tourism even if the only place to buy things like milk is the service station. We actually used to walk out of town and down the highway to get ours at a nearby motel's on-site corner store.
Anyway, considering the scale of the explosions, it's amazing no one was killed. It sounds like basically everyone did everything more or less right, which is certainly a change from a lot of other videos on this channel!
I'm from the area, and have relatives right near Antelope. The area soon had a housing boom in the late 80s, and it's now additional suburbs! Unfortunately, the area is kinda crappy unincorporated town. There was a military base that shut down I think in the 90s or early 2000s, and with it shutting down, the money left too. The whole north part of Sacramento county other than Citrus Heights is kinda crappy higher crime area cause of that.
@@rusefoxghost Uuhhh... in 1973, Antelope really wasn't even a "town", but more of just an "area". Today it is WAY larger with about 50,000 residents, but still an unincorporated city. Like any city, it has it's parts that are better and parts that are worse, but to call the whole city "crappy" is just not accurate. There are much much worse areas in the greater Sacramento area.
@@Calango741 Semantics aside, Antelope is definitely not the nicest place, really nothing along Watt Ave is. But "crappy" isn't "downright awful." I have to pay far more attention as a woman, so you probably don't care about what I have to pay attention to. I'd still go to the store in the area, especially the further from Watt I get. I just wouldn't leave anything in my car, or go out long after sunset. I mostly just hate driving there, the drivers suck and never have insurance. There are far worse places in sac county north of the river, and far nicer too. My dad once worked decades in Sac PD with his beat in Del Paso, and I know plenty of people from other law enforcement that covers the area. I know what I'm talking about in north sac.
@@Calango741you cannot judge someone for being cautious in north Sac lmfao.
@@rusefoxghostdrivers in Sac suck in general! Haha
wasn't born until well after the event, but did spend several quite a few years living in the northwest corner of Citrus Heights, right beside the railyards, and heard a few stories about it from time to time. Not from eyewitnesses, just long after the fact 'here's a cool anecdote about this area'.
Please never change the intro music!
Absolute banger 🔥
I grew up in Roseville and had never heard of this disaster till now. And believe it or not, a train derailed just yesterday in the same town. Weird series of coincidences for sure, keep doing what your doing ❤
I am a weird niche history nerd. I am from Sacramento. I did a hell of a lot of schooling on exactly these kinds of scenarios for my job. HOW HAD I NEVER HEARD OF THIS?! (This channel is awesome.❤)
My family tells stories of hearing the explosions all the way from Sacramento lol
I lived in Roseville most of my life, though I was born after this event, but have driven by where it happened many times. It's easy to forget about this event, I tend to think more about when the mall got arson'd in I want to say 2010
Long time fan! I'm from Antelope! Love love love the video!
Love and appreciate all of your videos
Should do one on the railyard disaster in Decatur, Illinois in the 1970s several were killed. Norfolk & Western RR i think.
Or Chatsworth, Il TP&W wreck in the ,1880s. I think 80 some were killed.
Love the channel btw.
Grew up in Roseville and have watched everyone of your videos. Love it
You do an awesome job at telling the story. Almost feel like I am there.. I often listen to your story’s with out watching the video itself and still feel as if I am there..
Been waiting for you to cover this one for a while!
What is crazy to me is that I have lived in Roseville, California my whole, yet I've never ever heard of this story. I thought for sure that this had to be a different Roseville, but no. It's honestly insane to hear all these extremely familiar towns and photos all surrounded around such an event.
How old are you? Any of us that were old enough, certainly remember it well. I was 18 at the time.
Whoa....I grew up in Antelope, California from 1994-2008. That is still where my childhood home is. I had heard a little bit about this story, but never thought it would appear on this channel. Surreal.
P.S. - the town of Antelope came back in a big way after this incident. As of 2020, the town has almost 50,000 residents and is growing day-by-day full of parks, schools, and new subdivisions.
I was born and raised in Roseville, and was living there when the bombs exploded. The explosions were a little over a mile from where I lived. My Dad had worked for the Southern Pacific since he had come home from WWll. I was awakened when the first bomb went off. There was an AFB not too far away; McClellan AFB, and I immediately thought that a plane had crashed. When the next bomb blew I knew it was something else. I ran through the house opening all the windows so that any subsequent blasts would pass through, hoping it would be enough to keep the windows intact. As the following blasts came the Roseville P. D. began to evacuate the area. We were related to the then mayor, George Buljan, and we went to stay with his family. We were able to keep up to date on the situation. We were finally let back to our homes the next day. As soon as I could I drove through the town of Antelope. It was completely obliterated. What really amazed me was how the nearby grove of oak trees had changed. I'd watched the trees as I grew up and knew how they looked. Typical, healthy, thick oak trees. Now, after the explosions, the huge limbs on the trees had been twisted and turned in all sorts of strange ways. It was a heck of a weekend.
Are the trees still there or have they been removed for housing?
Ironic that the firehouse was completely destroyed.
I live a few minutes away from Roseville and I'd never heard of this incident until now, fascinating.
I disagree
@@skelly4998lol how can you disagree, disagree with what?
It’s 2:13am (BST) on 3 April here in England - I’ve just watched this in bed - here’s hoping I sleep well !
I too love your channel and always look forward to a new instalment !
Thank you !
A unicorn on this channel! Safety was strictly upheld, proper inspections performed, no corners cut, and no deaths.
Wonderfully narrated as usual. Great work on an interesting subject. I thought it was incredible that no-one was killed.😮
You should look into the Norfolk and Western Railroad disaster in Decatur, IL in 1974
I remember it well. Even though I lived 15+ miles away, I was awakened by the sound of the bombs exploding. The pictures on the local news and in the papers of houses standing intact but with the entire roof ripped off; or of large trees impaled by a section of rail that had been driven through the trunk are still vivid in my memory. We drove by the Roseville yard a few days after the incident and saw huge piles of destroyed rails and cars that had been pushed up to clear the way to lay new tracks and re-open the yard.
I live here and I’ve never heard of this! Thank you for the information I greatly appreciate it
In the 80’s I used to go to the Roseville auction/ swap meet. They had the BEST corn dogs I’ve ever had
🎵 Denio's Farmer's Market and Auction 🎵
Denio's does have great corn dogs...!
How can a witness be watching a movie at the drive-in theater during the day? I was there in nearby North Highlands, it was a Sunday morning and just return from church. My father was a fire chief of North Highlands at the time and worked with the Citrus Heights Fire District during the incident. I remember him calling home and told us to evacuate to some friends about 12 miles away. I remember FF Steve explaining years later evacuating from station 26 ( the new fire station that was flattened mentioned in this video). He had just pulled the engine out onto the apron and a shockwave leveled the steel building. That was a terrifying experience for him.
I met a firefighter that was stationed at that antelope fire station that was leveled. Most of my co-workers over the years remember that day well. I was living in antelope in 1997 when they detonated the bombs that they found buried in the rail yard. I lived several miles away but it still rattled my windows. It was reported on the news the next morning that some homes close to the 97 detonation had sustained some broken windows.
Another interesting explosion happened in Roseburg Oregon in 1959. If I remember right it was a truck loaded with dynamite. That would be an interesting one to cover.
I've never been this early before!!! Always love your videos! ❤