1997?? need to verify

Michael & Dad take train home from beach vacation. Here is M after we left the LA station. He has camera ready. We're going through Oxnard then...

All of a sudden WHUMP, and a THUMP!
And a conductor comes running down the ailse saying somthing like "Oh no, not again!..."
That's the last I (Clay) saw of them for awhile. We slowly stopped, and on our left I could see out the window a truck - wiped out, and not a pretty sight. There was an announcement to de-train...I got Michael off on the right side of the train, and to a safe place, saw the smoke at the head of the train, and half a semi cab burning a hundred yards away. Then went back to help a lot of elderly people off.

Then later took these pictures...3 fatalities, no injuries to anyone in train.

I remember news helicopters got there before paramedics (so it seemed), and certainly a long time before anybody came by to pick us up. Funny, I can't find any reference to this in news archives (though it was in the papers and on TV I heard)...I guess it got buried among a gazillion other train mishaps since then.

From the caboose

(A couple years later Michael wrote a story about it, I think he got some facts wrong though)

The Train Crash -
By Michael Weimer, June 2001

<>One day in L.A. my dad and I were going to take the train to go to San Jose. So we got onto the train. It was a nice ride until we stopped all of the sudden and I looked out the window and there was a lady screaming and a dead man on the ground. Then I saw another guy which looked like a rock hit him. It looked like the car got hit by the train. Then the employees got us out of the train. They told us the driver lived, but the passenger of the car had died. <>

It was a hot day. Good thing there was a house nearby. The people in the house who lived there gave us food and cold drinks. I had my camera with me so I took pictures of the beat up car and the helicopters and the damage. The guys who worked on the train said that a bus was coming to pick us up. We went to the nearest train station on the bus and when we got there we got free Kentucky Fried Chicken. I loved it. Then we got on the train and went to the San Jose train station . We took a taxi home. When we finally got home, my dad couldn’t find his keys. We searched the bag and discovered there was a hole in the bag where dad had put the keys. We decided we lost the keys at the place where the train crashed. So my dad broke into our house at about 3:30 a.m. When I finally got in the door I went straight to bed.

Unboarded

Leftside

Trainsmoke, right side

Pieces of the cab of truck (right side)
Michael and I were in train car just to left.

More

cabwhatsleftofit

rightsidecab

hotday

Lucky, there was a farm nearby.

New engine to take us back, hooking up to some cars.

michael waiting

My Keys!

After KFC box lunch on way home...

We took a bus to another town, then back on a train. Got home late late at night (san jose) 2 AM, and I realize keys were gone (Michael said, "Dad I told you the keys were about to fall out of the bag at the train wreck", I said "I don't remember, why didn't you just pick them up?", He said " Cause you yelled at me to be quiet and don't do anything..."

I had to break in our house.