The westbound train is in the siding at Tolar. The town would be literally wiped off the map a year later. On Thursday, November 30, 1944 a westbound train with 81 cars was approaching the town. The train crew detected a hot-box on a tank car loaded with oil. When the engineer applied the brakes to stop the train the tank car derailed along with 36 other cars 200 yards from downtown Tolar. In the wreckage was a boxcar with 41 tons of explosives. The resulting fire set off the load of 500 pound bombs. The explosion leveled the town. Of the town's 30 residents, most were out of town working or running errands and the kids were in school at Taiban. There were only six people in town and miraculously only one person was killed in the accident.

Delano Index

The Wayward Wind