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A Nebraska teenager has been charged with two counts of criminal mischief after he was accused of causing a train to derail, recording the crash 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 transfer the case to adult court.
A BNSF Railway investigator said in court documents that the teenager alerted authorities to the derailment and asked investigators what caused the crash.
He is accused of tampering with a railroad and causing two locomotives and five loaded BNSF cars to jump the rails in Bennet on April 21.
It was unclear if the teenager had retained an attorney, and her parents could not be reached for comment Thursday.
While the cars were being straightened, one crashed into an empty coal car, causing $350,000 in damage, a railroad company investigator said in court records.
In the moments before the crash, the driver tried to make an emergency stop but ran out of time before the collision, court records show.
The train driver told a BNSF investigator that a misaligned switch led to the crash and that a lock that was supposed to be attached to the switch was missing, the documents said.
BNSF Railway operates trains on the railroad to deliver coal to a power plant in Nebraska City.
The teenager, who reported the derailment to authorities, approached an investigator after the crash and asked what caused it. When the investigator said that was not determined, he replied that “obviously a switch was flipped the wrong way,” according to court records.
He told the investigator he was a train buff and showed her the video he took 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 indicated 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 on the YouTube account ZUnit06, which is believed to be associated with (the teenager),” an investigator said in the document. “This account features numerous 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!”