Investigators encountered an awful scene when they arrived in the remote Arizona desert in the late evening hours of October 9, 1995. The Amtrak passenger Sunset Limited train, bound from Miami to Los Angeles, had run off track, sixty miles southwest of Phoenix. The two locomotives and eight of the twelve cars had derailed, with four of them falling thirty feet off a trestle bridge into a dry river bed. The derailment resulted in seventy-eight injuries and one fatality.

Officials quickly determined the incident was no accident when an evacuated passenger found a note lying in the vast terrain. The letter, titled “Indictment of the ATF and the FBI,” contained several anti-government statements, specifically referencing the 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and the 1993 catastrophe at Waco, Texas. Three more notes were also found; all were signed “Sons of the Gestapo.”

The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City had occurred six months previously. Ruby Ridge and Waco had also fueled Timothy McVeigh’s ire. Authorities feared a related anti-government group had carried out another incident of domestic terrorism.

Derailment in the Desert

The investigation into the derailment of the Sunset Limited confirmed the cause as sabotage. The track rails were connected at a joint where thirty-nine spikes had been purposefully removed. The alteration caused the rail to shift a mere four inches, but it was enough to cause the crash.

Investigators determined the saboteur(s) had a great knowledge of railroads. The signal circuits, the electrical wires running through the track, were undisturbed, circumventing safety systems designed to warn engineers of track problems. In addition to its remoteness, authorities believe the portion of the track was specifically chosen because it was on a curve ahead of a trestle.

Not an Accident

Of the seventy-eight people injured, twelve were deemed in serious condition, but all ultimately made full recoveries.

The sole casualty was forty-one-year-old Mitchell Bates, a sleeping car attendant who had worked for Amtrak for twenty years.

Mitchell Bates

The investigation into the Amtrak derailment found parallels to the unsolved 1939 derailment of the City of San Francisco passenger train near Harney, Nevada, that had resulted in twenty-four deaths and one-hundred-seventeen injuries.

In both cases, the sabotage was done ahead of a bridge in a remote desert area.

Similarities to an Earlier Derailment

 

A story of the 1939 Nevada train derailment appeared in a publication for train aficionados shortly before the Amtrak derailment. Investigators suspected the article may have inspired someone to commit a similar act.

Federal agents questioned many of the periodical’s readers but could not establish a link between any of them and the derailment of the Sunset Limited.

Inspired By the Harney Article?

Domestic terrorism scholars had never heard of the “Sons of the Gestapo” and authorities never determined the existence of such an anti-government group.

The notes found near the crash site are now believed to have been red herrings, designed to thwart investigators by leading to them to believe the act was related to the recent Oklahoma City bombing and the earlier incidents at Ruby Ridge and Waco.

Investigators now believe the act was, instead, carried out by a disgruntled railroad employee. The Amtrak train was traveling along tracks of the Southern Pacific Transportation Company. At the time, the company was in bankruptcy, and many employees were upset about having to take substantial pay cuts. The section of track where the derailment occurred was scheduled to be abandoned in the near future, meaning transfers of employees and fewer work hours and, hence, even less money.

The case remains open and in 2015, the FBI announced a reward of $310,000 for information leading to the apprehension of those responsible for the derailment of the Sunset Limited.

Who Engineered for the Amtrak Derailment?

A person of interest in the incident is John Olin, a contractor who lived near Hyder, Arizona, near the derailment site.

Thirty-two-years-old at the time, Olin had done cleanup work for Southern Pacific Lines for several years. He had a checkered past, having served time in prison for burglary. He had also been accused of robbery and murder, but he was not convicted of those more serious charges.

A former Army veteran, Olin had a violent temper, so much so that two people asked to have restraining orders against him. Much of his ire was geared toward two railroad companies.

Olin operated a metal recycling business at the beginning of 1994. He was angry after being denied permission to use the railroad lines to ship his gathered scrap. He also wanted to lease land from the Santa Fe Railway and the Apache Railway, but neither railroad would do so.

The FBI searched Olin’s home in December, 1995, two months after the bombing. Arizona Republic articles of the time state agents were looking for items such as crowbars and tools, and that Olin’s computer records were analyzed. The FBI made no announcement of the findings.

John Olin

The large gouge in the embankment was created by the impact of the train.

The section of track on which the wreck took place is now used only as storage track.

Site of the Derailment

Two of the four notes from the “Sons of the Gestapo” were found by Neal Hallford, an Amtrak passenger travelling from Oklahoma to San Diego.

Hallford is a game designer known for his work on fantasy role-playing games.

Neal Hallford

The Sunset Limited is still running. Founded in 1894, it is the oldest continuously operating named train in the United States.

In 1996, the year after the derailment near Phoenix, Union Pacific, which had recently acquired Southern Pacific, rerouted the Sunset Limited’s Arizona route to between Tucson and Yuma, bypassing the Grand Canyon State’s largest city.

The Derailment Did Not Lead to the Sun Setting on the Sunset Limited

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/336433/mitchell-bates 

 

SOURCES:

• azcentral. Com
• Arizona Republic
• New York Times
• National Public Radio
• Unsolved Mysteries