- A 17-year-old boy told investigators he recorded the April 21 derailment.
- He is now charged with $5,000 worth of criminal damage.
A teenager is accused of deliberately causing a train derailment in Nebraska to film it and post it on YouTube.
The 17-year-old, who has not been identified because he is a minor, had his cell phone and a 4k digital recorder seized by a BNSF Railway investigator on July 8 in connection with the derailment that occurred months earlier. Fox Nebraska Report.
He allegedly told investigators at the scene of the April 21 derailment that he recorded the accident at Bennet, in which two locomotives and five fully loaded coal trains came off the tracks but remained upright.
They then crashed into an empty coal car that was parked on the side track before coming to a stop, according to an affidavit obtained by Fox Nebraska.
A teenager has been charged with allegedly causing a train derailment in Bennet, Nebraska, on April 21.
A train driver told a railroad company investigator after the crash that his train was traveling east and approaching a crossing when he noticed a U-turn was misaligned.
The change caused the train to divert onto an industrial track next to a grain elevator.
The driver said he attempted to make an emergency stop, but it was not activated before reaching the switching point, causing the train to crash.
The investigator later discovered that a padlock that was supposed to be attached to the switch was missing, indicating it had been tampered with. KOLN reports.
Meanwhile, the teenager showed up at the scene of the accident and asked about the derailment, saying he had recorded the accident on his phone.
Then, when authorities said they did not know the cause of the derailment, according to the affidavit, the boy replied, “Obviously a switch was flipped in the wrong direction.”
Investigators also say the teen’s video, which was later posted to a YouTube account believed to belong to the boy, showed the scene before, during and after the crash.
The boy denied trespassing and tampering with the switch, but the investigator at the scene said he knew where it was and how it worked.
Two locomotives and five fully loaded coal trains veered off the tracks but remained upright.
A BNSF Railway investigator noticed that a padlock that was supposed to be attached to the switch was missing, indicating it had been tampered with.
Three days after the derailment, the BNSF investigator obtained surveillance footage showing a 1996 Buick Park Avenue in the area and the teenager walking along the south end of the tracks toward the switch with a tripod, the affidavit says.
He was later recorded returning to his vehicle after the derailment caused about $350,000 in damage to BNSF Railway and the Omaha Public Power District, which own the tracks used to supply coal to an OPPD plant in Nebraska City.
The teen has now been charged with criminal mischief exceeding $5,000, KOLN reports.
But Lancaster County Prosecutor Pat Condon said the boy is not in police custody.
He said his office will now file a motion to transfer the case to adult court.