Rail sabotage

Rail sabotage (colloquially known as wrecking) is the act of disrupting a rail transport network. This includes both acts designed only to hinder or delay as well as acts designed to actually destroy a train. Railway sabotage requires considerable effort, due to the design and heavy weight of railways.

A film from Camp Claiborne from March 8, 9 and 10 1944 of derailment tests done on the Claiborne-Polk Military Railroad. The tests were done to better train allied personnel in acts of rail sabotage during World War 2.

Sabotage must be distinguished from more blatant methods of disruption (e.g., blowing up a train, train robbery).

Methods

Relay cabinet arson

In 2022, setting fire to rail relay cabinets that control track operations^[1] was a common method of sabotage during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Track obstruction

Damage to infrastructure

Notable instances

1861: East Tennessee bridge burnings – Union sympathizers destroyed nine railroad bridges in East Tennessee, on the orders of President Lincoln. The bridges were quickly rebuilt.
1864: John Yates Beall, a Confederate Navy officer, was discovered plotting to derail a Union passenger train and executed the following year.
1905: 20th Century Limited derailment - Although unconfirmed, the evidence pointed heavily to malicious involvement in the derailment of the New York Central Railroad's crack passenger train, the 20th Century Limited, resulting in 21 deaths.
1915: Vanceboro bridge bombing – the Saint Croix–Vanceboro Railway Bridge (over the U.S.–Canada border) was bombed by German saboteurs, although the bridge was not destroyed and was quickly rebuilt.
1939: 1939 City of San Francisco derailment
1942: Thamshavn Line sabotage – the transformer station for Norway's Thamshavn Line (an electric railroad) was blown up by Norwegian saboteurs during the German occupation.
1951: Huntly rail bridge bombing – a rail bridge near Mahuta, three miles from Huntly, New Zealand, was severely damaged by dynamite charges during an industrial dispute. The sabotage was discovered after the bridge rocked noticeably as a slow moving morning passenger train came to rest across the bridge after braking for, and striking aside, warning sleepers laid across the track. Police believed it was an attempt to intimidate open-cast mine-workers who were not on strike.^[2]^[3]^[4]
1995: Palo Verde derailment – a train in Palo Verde, Arizona, was derailed by saboteurs shifting the rails out of position, causing one fatality. The case remains unsolved.
2002: Jaunpur train crash – a rail was broken and caused a train to derail, killing twelve people. An Islamic extremist organization was blamed.
2002: Rafiganj train wreck – a train derailed on a bridge over a river in Bihar, India, killing at least 130 people. A Maoist terrorist organization was blamed.
2022–2023: Belarusian Rail War and the Russian Rail War - rail sabotage campaigns carried out by Belarusian and Russian opposition and paramilitary groups opposed to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Damage to trains

Intentional switch misalignments

1982: An NJDOT commuter train crashes into a pasta factory in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, killing the engineer. Four youths who tampered with the switch were charged.^[5]
2024: On April 22nd, a BNSF coal train derails and collides with a freight car on a siding after a switch was intentionally misaligned in Bennett, Nebraska. The impact was caught on camera. ^[6]

Motivations

Vandalism

Greenock rail crash was caused by vandals.

Extortion

Klaus-Peter Sabotta sabotaged trains and attempted to extort money to prevent sabotaging more.

Terrorism

Both ISIL and Al Qaeda have advocated for rail sabotage and have published detailed instructions for how to commit such acts.^[7]

Rafiganj train wreck

2001 Angola train attack

There have been 41 rail sabotage incidents in Washington state since 2021, thought to be ecotage.^[8]^[9]

Military

Operation Washing

Simple Sabotage Field Manual published by OSS during World War 2 describes tactics for rail sabotage

In popular culture

References

^ "Railway sabotage after 50 days of war in Ukraine: here is what we know". RailTech.com. 15 April 2022. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
^ "Explosion on Bridge". Press. Vol. LXXXVII, no. 26409. Christchurch, New Zealand. New Zealand Press Association. 1 May 1951. p. 6. Retrieved 26 November 2022 – via paperspast.natlib.govt.nz.
^ Richardson, Len (1995). Coal, Class & Community: The United Mineworkers of New Zealand, 1880-1960. Auckland University Press. p. 292. ISBN 978-1-86940-113-9. Retrieved 26 November 2022 – via Google Books.
^ "SABOTEURS DYNAMITE RAIL BRIDGE". Townsville Daily Bulletin. Vol. LXXI. Queensland, Australia. 1 May 1951. p. 1. Retrieved 15 May 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^ "THE REGION; Youths Sentenced In Train Crash". The New York Times. March 30, 1985. Retrieved May 8, 2010.
^ "Teenage 'railroad enthusiast' to be charged as adult in Bennet train derailment". 20 August 2024.
^ https://transweb.sjsu.edu/sites/default/files/1794_Jenkins_Train-Wrecks-Train-Attacks.pdf ^{[bare URL PDF]}
^ Beaumont, Hilary (2021-07-29). "The activists sabotaging railways in solidarity with Indigenous people". the Guardian. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
^ "Oil Train Disaster Near Seattle May Have Been Caused By Sabotage". NPR.org. Retrieved 2022-06-26.