More than 600 returning holiday passengers were aboard Amtrak's Colonial on Jan. 4, 1987, en route from Newport News to Boston, on what would later prove to be a fateful Sunday afternoon.

After loading passengers in Baltimore, the Colonial, Amtrak train 94, with 12 cars, whose engineer was Jerome Evans, 35, departed for Wilmington, its next stop.

Unknown to Evans, three Conrail locomotives running light that had departed Baltimore's Bayview Yard earlier with an engine move to Harrisburg, had run a signal just south of the Gunpowder River in Chase, fouling a crossover switch, which placed the derailed engines directly in the path of the ill-fated Colonial.

Ricky Lynn Gates, the Conrail engineer, and his brakeman, Edward “Butch” Cromwell, later admitted to having shared a marijuana joint.

At 1:30 p.m., traveling at an estimated 125 mph and coming out of a curve, Evans had only seconds to react to the stalled locomotives that lay ahead of him as he slammed on the train's emergency brake.

The blinding crash of steel on steel that derailed cars and locomotives instantly killed Evans, a lounge car attendant and 14 passengers, while injuring 170.

Gates served four years in prison — two for manslaughter and two for lying to investigators. Cromwell was given immunity for his testimony.

Gates, who later became an addictions counselor, testified in favor of federal legislation that requires random drug testing for transportation workers.

frasmussen@baltsun.com