LAURENS, S.C. — Two juveniles have been detained and charged with a series of crimes after allegedly stealing and derailing a locomotive, the City of Laurens Police Department has announced.
The police are investigating break-ins at CSX Transportation and Carolina Piedmont Railroad facilities on Saturday, Aug. 9. Between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. the juveniles started a locomotive connected to two other units, running the three locomotives in the yard and onto the Carolina Piedmont main line between Laurens and Greenville, S.C. While trying to return the locomotives to the yard, they struck stationary railcars, derailing a locomotive and causing significant damage to one of the cars.
“This was a dangerous and reckless act,” Laurens Police Chief Heath Copeland said in a press release. “Railroad property is not a place to play. Trains, rail lines, and yards present serious risks, and unauthorized access can have life-threatening consequences.”
The two juveniles have been charged with second-degree burglary; grand larceny (over $10,000), malicious damage to property (over $10,000), willful destruction of railroad property, and injury to railroad. They have been detained at the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice in Columbia, S.C.
The Carolina Piedmont is a 34-mile Genesee & Wyoming line connecting Laurens and East Greenville, S.C., interchanging with CSX at Laurens. For CSX, Laurens is 36 miles south of Spartanburg, S.C., on the Spartanburg Subdivision.
