In the almost two decades since the site’s creation, YouTube pranksters have become one of the most annoying subgroups of human beings, often showing little regard for the impact their pranks might have on others. This appears to be the case for a Nebraska teen who has recently been accused of tampering with a train and filming the resulting derailment, causing some $350,000 in damage in the process.
In April, a train derailed at a railroad crossing in Lincoln, with two locomotives and five fully-loaded rail cars coming off the rails. While they remained upright during the derailment, they did collide with an empty coal car, causing damage to the rail, the locomotives and the rail cars.
The 17-year-old, a train enthusiast, was at the scene recording the entire thing, and even shared his footage with a local news channel afterwards. Authorities have now sought a warrant to investigate the teen’s phone and digital camera.
An investigator with the railway police spoke to the train’s conductor in the aftermath, and he explained that he noticed a switch had been misaligned, which led the train from an eastbound route onto an industry track. He tried to perform an emergency stop, but didn’t have enough time before the train reached the switch location, resulting in the crash.
A padlock is usually attached to the switch, but it was missing; something the investigator noticed before he was approached by the 17-year-old himself. The teenager told the investigator that “obviously a switch was flipped the wrong way,” before showing him his footage of the crash. He denied tampering with the switch, but the investigator noted that he knew where the switch was and how it worked.
That was just one of many rookie errors he committed. Some of the others: hanging around the scene of the crime, recording evidence of your crime, gleefully offering up said evidence to literally anyone who’ll listen and ingratiating yourself in the investigation.
Doesn’t this kid watch any cop shows? These are all bright red flags!
The investigation is underway, and if sufficient evidence is found, the teen could be charged with criminal mischief over $5,000. If he wants to stay out of trouble in the future, might I suggest trying to be more like Francis Bourgeois, celebrated British train enthusiast who simply looks at trains instead of derailing them.
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