Citrus Heights Historical Society looks back on 1973 Roseville Railyard bomb explosions

By Mike Hazlip–
Memories are still fresh for residents more than 50 years after military bombs bound for Vietnam exploded at a Roseville railyard, starting a chain reaction of explosions that injured more than 100 people and forced the evacuation of thousands.

Citrus Heights Historical Society President Larry Fritz took attendees back to that fateful of April 28, 1973. in a presentation to the community on Thursday, May 1. Just before 8 a.m. on that Saturday morning in 1973, a small fire near the wheels of one of the boxcars caused the bombs in one car to explode, starting a chain reaction that lasted more than a day.

Many of those in attendance had vivid recollections of the event, including Fritz, who said he saw and felt the explosions while at a drive-in movie several miles away. Miraculously, no one was killed in what became known as the Roseville Railyard Disaster.

Residents from surrounding communities packed the Community Room of Citrus Heights City Hall to listen to the presentation and share memories, including members from a number of other local historical societies from Roseville, Orangevale, and Rio Linda. Citrus Heights Mayor Jayna Karpinski-Costa was also in attendance.

Fritz opened the presentation with a quote from a news article that was published just before the event. The article said that crews stationed at the newly completed Antelope Fire Station Six had little excitement in what was then a rural area. That would soon change, Fritz said.

Historical records show that Citrus Heights Fire Battalion Chief Lloyd Patterson was at the Antelope Station Six for a final inspection. The station had just been completed the day before, and Lt. F. Grundy lived in a mobile home next to the station full time. Grundy’s wife was then nine months pregnant.

Patterson and Grundy spotted smoke coming from one of the boxcars and went to investigate, according to records. The first bombs exploded before they were able to get across the tracks, Fritz said. The resulting chain reaction would last about a day and a half and leveled the small town of Antelope.

Resident Jeffery Flores said he was a young boy at the time, living with his 12 siblings. The family was forced to evacuate amid the chaos of the explosions.

“We thought we were in a war,” Flores said. “Because the Vietnam War was going on at the time. All our power was knocked out.”

Flores vividly recalled the blasts. “We started seeing rolls of fire going up, then it formed a mushroom,” Flores said. “Then here comes the blast. Boom! Then the sound was terrible; it blew our eardrums out. That wasn’t the worst of it; the scrap metal started coming down, bam, bam, bam, everywhere.”

One attendee brought a large piece of shrapnel from one of the boxcars, and another brought a piece of shrapnel from a bomb to the event.

Many of the injuries were due to broken glass as windows blew out from the blasts, residents recalled.

“At about 8:03 in the morning, I was watching The Jetsons, and my sliding glass door came in at me and then automatically went out reverse, and I went with it,” one man recalled. “Shards of glass [were] everywhere.”

Another woman recalled the ceiling falling in while she and her family were sleeping.

“We had glass shreds into the wall that was above where she was sleeping,” she said, adding that no one was seriously injured, but they were traumatized by the event.

The exact cause of the fire remains unclear. The official incident report points to two likely causes, both involving the design of the boxcar. One theory suggests the possibility of sparks from the braking wheels igniting the wood floor of a boxcar. The train employed heavy braking as it traveled westbound from the Sierra Nevada mountains to Roseville. Another theory raises the possibility of a stuck wheel bearing overheating.

Fritz was pleased with the turnout and said the next project for the Citrus Heights Historical Society is a video documentary on Ted Mitchell. Mitchell’s family has owned land in Citrus Heights since 1866, Fritz said. The Mitchell Farms housing development along Arcadia Drive bears the family name.

The documentary video will be shown at the society’s next quarterly meeting on Aug. 7, Fritz said. The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. in the Community Room of Citrus Heights City Hall.