Teenager accused of derailing train, recording accident and posting it online

A Nebraska teenager has been charged with two felony counts of criminal mischief after he was accused of causing a train derailment, recording the accident and posting the video on YouTube, according to court records.

The 17-year-old was arraigned in Lancaster County Juvenile Court on Wednesday, but prosecutors filed a motion to have the case transferred to adult court.

A BNSF Railway investigator said in court documents that the teenager alerted authorities to the derailment and asked the arriving investigator what caused the accident.

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

It was unclear whether the teen had retained an attorney and his parents could not be reached for comment Thursday.

While the cars remained upright, one of them struck an empty coal car, causing $350,000 in damage, a railroad investigator said in court records.

In the moments before the accident, the driver tried to make an emergency stop, but ran out of time before the collision, the records show.

The train’s conductor told a BNSF investigator that a misaligned key caused the accident and that a padlock that was supposed to be attached to the key was missing, the documents state.

BNSF Railway operates railroad trains to supply coal to a power plant in Nebraska City.

The teenager, who reported the derailment to authorities, approached an investigator after the accident and asked what caused it. When the investigator said it was undetermined, he responded that “obviously a switch was flipped in the wrong direction,” according to court records.

He told the investigator he was a train enthusiast and showed him video he had filmed of the derailment, records show.

Lancaster County Attorney Patrick F. Condon declined to comment.

The teenager denied breaking into the area and tampering with the switch, but the investigator highlighted in the documents that he knew where the switch was and how it worked.

Authorities later discovered that a tripod had been set up near the crash site just four minutes before the train derailed, court records show.

“In the days following the derailment, a video of the derailment was posted to the YouTube account ZUnit06, believed to be associated with [the teen],” an investigator said in the document. “This account features several train videos filmed in Bennet, NE and other locations in Lancaster County, NE.”

The investigator said a video posted on April 23 was titled “Loaded BNSF Arbor Collides and Derails In Bennet, NE!”