Tom, Mark, now you know why I questioned the stability of any WWII ammunition still stored at Hawthorne and elsewhere…
Explosives of any kind, even those considered ‘safe’ (safe explosive, an oxymoron to top all oxymorons!) are VERY unforgiving when it comes to mishandling. I remember the Roseville incident (disaster control term - everything is an incident) and talked to some of the folks who had been in the area at the time. For sheer, concentrated effect, the only thing even vaguely comparable would have been a nine-plane Arclight with short-delay bombs. One picture which got as far as Stars and Stripes in Thailand showed dozens of UXB laying around like eggs at an egg-rolling contest. Not my idea of a fun event!
IIRC, during my tenure with Disaster Control, the size of the safety circle around four Mk72 bombs was increased. We had to re-do and re-certify all the flight line bomb loading sites…
Maybe all the laser and particle-beam weapons being developed will eliminate the need for explosives in war. Explosives will still be necessary for mining, construction and ‘de-construction.’
De-construction? Well, every time Stacey Loiseaux comes to town, she brings along some specialized explosives - and an old casino goes KaBo-Bo-Bo-Bo-Bo-Bo-Boom and disappears in a cloud of dust. Wonderful thing, delayed-detonation implosions!
Here is a picture of an SP “Wamp” on the Mina branch with the train it picked up at Thorne where the S.P. interchanged with the ammunition plant’s military railroad, era 1948.
Port Chicago was absolute devastation. And unlike Antelope/Roseville, I believe there was a high loss of human life in those catastrophic explosions. Luckily, in the Roseville disaster, though there were several injuries, there were no deaths that I recall. But I remember being almost knocked out of bed when they began–early in the morning. I looked out the kitchen window and saw these enormous clouds of smoke bursting up from the northeast over Roseville and the ground shaking like I was in San Francisco on a VERY bad day. I phoned into work and said I didn’t know what was happening, but I thought I’d better stay home in case I had to pack and leave. The person at work just whispered, “For God’s sake, turn on the TV.”
I did. I couldn’t believe what I was watching. The ground shook for 12 hours. My Abyssinian cat Charlie came streaking in from the garage and was under my bed for 3 days. Later, I heard on the news that campers near Gold Run had seen fire coming from one of the freight car trucks early in the morning. Evidently the Navy had loaded a bad-order boxcar in Hawthorne completely unaware of the fact that it was in dire need of shopping.
WHEW!
Tom [:O]
PS: Love that photo of the ‘Wamp.’ Espee sure liked to hang onto their steam, didn’t they?[:P]
I worked at NWS Concord for a number of years. Except for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command facility in San Bruno (which is really a bunch of contract managers), it was the last of the US Navy facilities in the Bay Area. After the Missouri Battle Group fiasco, the Navy decided to move all their bases (nearly a dozen!)from the San Francisco Bay area to a friendlier environment. The best job I ever had was as the Natural Resources Manager at Concord. I had nearly free run of the entire base (my own 20 square mile ranch!), including the entire railroad infrastructure. There were over 100 miles of Navy track, interchange with 3 Class I railroads, and vestigial traces of the original San Francisco and San Joaquin, with rail dated 1899! I’ve seen Warbonnet Dash 9-40CWs running (very slowly…) over that track. There was a trestle over the Class Is from the Inland to the Tidal areas, and the line to the Inland Area followed the old Bay Point and Clayton right of way from the industries on the Port Chicago waterfront to the cement plant at Cowell. The Sacramento NorthernWestern Pacific Union Pacific main line to Oakland was almost parallel along Port Chicago Highway, and is now the BART right of Way. The Santa Fe BNSF and the Southern Pacific Union Pacific mainlines were within spitting distance of each other there, and Amtrak switched from the SP to the BNSF tracks there. A wonderful place for a railfan! But, alas!, like most government decisions, the facility was “realigned” under a Southern California command, then the Navy gave the Army the port facilities (does that make sense?) and placed the Inland storage area, with its irreplacaeable (at any cost) facilities, on the BRAC list, and now the developers are champing at the bit to put houses all over the nearly pristine oak forested hills, and scrub grassland and riparian habitat. I will have a number of these are
I was privileged to attend the dedication of the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial on July 17th, 1994, the 50th anniversary of the Port Chicago explosion. 320 men were killed, and 370 injured. The Director of the National Park Service gave a most memorable talk, saying that National Memorials do not typically commemorate happy events. Unfortunately, since the site is located very near the present-day explosive loading piers, it is not normally open to the public. I wore several hats during my days at Naval Weapons Station Concord, including that of Cultural Resources manager. I studied everything known about the explosion, and was responsible for coordinating NPS maintenance of the site. The remnants of Pier 1’s pilings are still barely visible , depending on the tides, and the newer piers were numbered 2,3, and 4. Safety and training considerations received more emphasis after the accident. I felt pretty safe working there for the decade of the 90s, and never heard of an explosives accident. That’s not to say other types of accidents didn’t happen…
He moved back to Hawthorne after we graduated from college in Texas. My first real vacation, at my first real job, was a week with him in Hawthorne. This was in 1981. At the time, the base was transitioning to civilian contractors. There was an enginehouse with three pristine Baldwin road switchers (never saw any of them move in the week I was there; I might have pictures somewhere). The base had a 9 hole golf course with grass tee boxes and grass greens; everything else was gravel or kilichi.
We roamed the surrounding hills; walked the Bodie and Benton right of way; spent a day in Bodie; and had a great time.
Of course, he’s since come to his senses, and has moved back to Texas…
When the UP merged with the SP one of their first projects was the reconfigue the Antelope end of Roseville. You guessed it, by the time the project was finished the contractor dug up 13 more 500 pound bombs. They desided to explode the bombs on site, to dangerous to move. In the past twenty years housing incroched on the yard and about a dozen houses were damaged.
But I cringe to think for twenty odd years 10,000 ton trains were rumbling through Antelope. This was the busiest line on the SP. over the years at least three demolation companies have declared the site safe.