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A teenager from Nebraska is facing two felony charges amid accusations
that they purposefully caused a train to derail. The teen, who has not
been named by authorities, is accused of tampering with train tracks and causing a crash so that they could film it and post the footage online.

A BNSF Railway locomotive crashed on April 21 after a misaligned switch
caused it to jump tracks in Bennet, Nebraska, reports NBC News. In the
crash, the train and its cars remained upright, but collided with a
stationary coal truck causing an estimated $350,000 worth of damage.

Now, a teenager who was on site when the crash occurred is facing
accusations that they caused the train crash in order to post footage of
the devastation online. As NBC News explains:

An investigator with BNSF Railway said in court documents that the
teenager alerted authorities to the derailment and asked the investigator
who arrived what caused the crash.

He is accused of tampering with a rail and causing two locomotives and
five loaded BNSF cars to jump the rails in Bennet on April 21.

While the railcars remained upright, one crashed into an empty coal car, causing $350,000 in damage, an investigator for the rail company said in
court records.

In the days following the crash, footage of the incident appeared online
posted by the ZUnit06 YouTube channel, which has been linked to the teen
in question. What’s more, when authorities arrived on the scene of the
crash, they uncovered a tripod that had been set up at the crash site just
four minutes before the train came steaming through.

https://youtu.be/q97XRpF6SZA

Police confiscated the teen’s cell phone and the video camera footage
recorded by BNSF Railway, reports the Metro. The teenrevealed to
investigators that they have a working knowledge of rail switches, which investigators say were tampered with to cause the crash. As Metro adds:

At the scene, a 17-year-old boy showed up and asked about the derailment
and said he had recorded the crash on his mobile phone, according to the affidavit.

When authorities said they did not know the cause of the derailment, the
boy said, ‘Obviously a switch was flipped the wrong way,’ stated court
records obtained by KOLN.

Now, the teen is facing charges of criminal mischief, which could lead to
a $5,000 fine. However, Lancaster County attorneys are filing a motion
that could see the teen’s case transfer to an adult court, which could
carry much harsher penalties.

Whether caused by nefarious parties or not, train derailments are becoming
all too common here in America. Last week, a garage was hit by a runaway
train for the second time, and derailed trains have also been captured
plowing through towns across America.

https://jalopnik.com/teen-accused-of-derailing-train-just-for-clicks- 1851607410

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