A minor Union Pacific Railroad train derailment Monday afternoon near Spreckels Avenue and Moffat Boulevard was cleared up within several hours.

It involved six box cars coming off the tracks.
It is part of a two-mile stretch of track that has seen two significant derailments since 1989.
The last one was on July 21, 2009 near Moffat Boulevard and Austin Road.

Fourteen rail cars of a 114-car southbound train came off the tracks but remained upright.

The incident started a small fire. There were no injuries.

The worst derailment occurred on Feb. 20, 1989 along Moffat Boulevard midway between Manteca High and where the Manteca Transit Center is today.

There were 48 cars of an 82-car train that derailed, with a  number of them ending up stacked up on one another. Southern Pacific, that later merged with UP, was operating the tracks.

There were 200 people evacuated from homes east and west of Manteca High as well as Powers Tract.
Although the accident happened on a Monday, school was not in session due to the Presidents’ Day holiday.

Three of the derailed cars contained residue from chlorine, phosphoric acid and hydrocarbons, which prompted the evacuation order.

Four cars that did not derail contained military ordnance and were later taken to Oakland. The four contained cannon shells being transported from Houston to a military facility in Hawthorne, Nev.

Sixteen years earlier, a munitions train in the Roseville yard caught fire prompting many of the 7,000 bombs in 21 boxcars headed for the Vietnam War to eventually explore. There were no deaths but 350 people sustained minor injuries from broken glass as windows shattered from the explosions.

Initially, responders from the Manteca Fire Department were unable to locate the wreckage due to extremely heavy morning tule fog. Much more of Manteca was undeveloped at the time so the  ground fog  that comes from sandy loam was much denser than it is now.

The train in 1989 was traveling at 50 mph — 5 miles per hour than the top speed allowed at the time on the  track segment.

The derailment occurred at 5:55 a.m. when the locomotive’s weight snapped a rail bolt.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com