The Roseville Yard Disaster was an accidental explosion and fire that occurred on April 28, 1973, at a major

Southern Pacific The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

rail yard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or u ...

in the city of

Roseville, California Roseville is the most populous city in Placer County, California, located within the Sacramento metropolitan area. As of 2019, the US Census Bureau estimated the city's population to be 141,500. Interstate 80 runs through Roseville and State Rout ...

. The shipment of munitions bound for the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

originated at the Hawthorne, Nevada Naval Ammunition Depot. Explosions continued for a number of hours and the loudest could be heard as far as away. There were no fatalities, although 48 people were injured. Subsequent investigation pointed to a small fire in a box car caused by overheated brakes. The US military-owned box car was part of a train of military box cars carrying high explosive aircraft ammunition that had just arrived in the yard after descending from the Sierra Nevada into the Roseville Yard. The train had been switched to a Southern Pacific line in Sparks, Nevada, before descending from

Donner Summit Donner Pass is a mountain pass in the northern Sierra Nevada, above Donner Lake and Donner Memorial State Park about west of Truckee, California. Like the Sierra Nevada themselves, the pass has a steep approach from the east and a gradual a ...

. According to the California Governor's Office of Emergency Service, "On April 28, 1973, in the Southern Pacific Railroad yard near the Northern California community of Roseville, a bomb detonated in one of the boxcars creating massive explosions, huge plumes of smoke in the air, destroyed buildings and rail sections and dug huge craters in the ground. Over a period of approximately 32 hours, 18 boxcars exploded in succession. The railroad yard was essentially destroyed."

References

{{reflist 1973 in California Railway accidents in 1973 Explosions in 1973 Railway accidents and incidents in California Roseville, California April 1973 events in the United States 1973 disasters in the United States