The federal case against a Bellingham woman responsible for placing shunts along the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) railroad in November 2020 has officially closed, ending the two-year saga that brought questions of ecoterrorism and an underground anarchist collective to Whatcom County.
Thirty-year-old Ellen Reiche was arrested Nov. 28, 2020, after BNSF police received a motion alert and a still photograph from the train tracks near Cliffside Drive, north of downtown Bellingham. When they arrived, officers discovered Reiche and co-defendant Samantha Brooks had placed a shunt — a device that interferes with train signals — along the tracks with the intention of disrupting an oncoming train carrying 97 tanker cars loaded with crude oil.
“Shunt” devices are thin wires stretched between tracks, designed to mimic the electrical signals of a train, forcing other trains to engage their emergency brakes, often causing derailments or significant equipment failure.
(Photo courtesy of United States District Court for the Western District of Washington)
Her goal: to “directly impede the fossil fuel industry,” according to court documents.
Reiche, initially facing terrorism charges, pled guilty and received a sentence of one year and one day in prison, and three years of supervised release for “committing an act of violence against a railroad carrier,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). She received her sentence in September 2021, but appealed the decision, arguing that she was “unaware of the risks posed by the shunt,” according to court documents.
The court upheld the original sentence.
“A reasonable person would understand that unexpectedly stopping a freight train, as it barrels down the tracks, poses an obvious risk of harm,” a panel wrote on behalf of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The case was closed Dec. 27, 2022, with Reiche’s impending release slated for February 2023, as Reiche has already served most of the one-year sentence.
Trail cam footage linked Reiche and Brooks to the scene where a shunt was discovered on Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway tracks late Nov. 28, 2020.
(Photo courtesy of United States District Court for the Western District of Washington)
The co-defendant, Brooks, pleaded guilty in July 2021 to interfering with a railroad signaling system. She was sentenced in October 2021 to six months in prison and three years of supervised release. Brooks was ordered to complete four months of home confinement and 200 hours of supervised community service.
Shunts appear to be the weapon of choice against trains in Whatcom and Skagit counties, where at least 40 others were placed along BNSF railroad tracks in 2020, prompting a significant investigation from the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF).
The shunts — thin wires stretched between tracks — are designed to mimic the electrical signals of an approaching train, forcing other trains to engage their emergency brakes. They can be incredibly destructive, particularly when a train is carrying explosive fuel — a common occurrence in this part of Washington.
Each week, millions of gallons of crude oil flow into Washington’s five oil refineries via the railroad. Two of those refineries – BP Cherry Point in Blaine and Phillips 66 in Ferndale — are in Whatcom County, and two others — Shell Oil and Tesoro, both in Anacortes — are in Skagit.
“The JTTF was involved in investigating these shunting incidents, as would most threats to critical infrastructure” the public affairs officers at the FBI’s Seattle office clarified.
In order for the case to be considered domestic terrorism, the FBI said, it must meet three requirements: a federal criminal violation; the threat or use of violence; and “ideological motivation.”
Posts on anarchist blogs began popping up, referencing and claiming the shunting incidents. Posters on one site claimed to be acting in solidarity with a Canadian Indigenous community, fighting the development of the Coastal Gaslink pipeline through central British Columbia (Wet’suwet’en territory).
“We disrupted the high-volume railway that moves resources from the active ports of Everett, Edmonds, Seattle, and further south to the Blaine border crossing into Canada” the anonymous author wrote. “If the RCMP raids Wet’suwet’en territory, we will shut down the supply lines where we stand.”
The poster took credit for placing shunts on BNSF tracks in January 2020 and encouraged readers to do the same.
According to the DOJ, several of the 2020 incidents were particularly dangerous, including one evening in October where shunts were placed in three separate locations across the two counties, triggering the automatic brakes on a passing train. On 10 occasions, shunts were placed in areas that “disrupt the crossing guards where the tracks cross streets, so vehicles could have tried to cross the tracks unaware of the oncoming train,” according to a DOJ release.
Of the 41 reported incidents in 2020, the most serious came just three weeks after Reiche’s arrest.
On Dec. 22, a 108-car BNSF train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed near Custer: 10 train cars derailed, spilling 29,000 gallons of crude oil, and another three cars caught fire. It took several weeks to fully contain the oil spill, and 120 people were evacuated, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
The December 2020 train derailment in Custer was “without a doubt” sabotage, according to local union workers.
(Photo courtesy of the Washington State Department of Ecology)
Union representatives said the incident was sabotage, “without a doubt.”
“We know from the FBI investigation, from how trains operate, how trains work, how the couplers work, how the pin lifters work, that this incident was caused without a doubt by sabotage,” Korey McDaniel, a representative from the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers union safety team, told BNSF Railway investigators following the incident, according to a transcript obtained by KUOW.
The Federal Railroad Administration report of the incident listed four contributing causes, including “possible vandalism” and “BNSF management’s failure to notify employees about vandalism events.” The report did not say if the incident was shunt-related or if it was tied to previous incidents.
Other groups responsible for investigating the derailment, including the National Transportation Safety Board and the FBI, did not release details about the cause of the incident. No arrests have been made in the Custer incident.
Prosecutors considered the Custer incident when they asked the court for a 27-month sentence for Reiche.
“There have been at least two examples just within the past year that hit close to home,” they wrote. “In one, an oil train derailed near Custer, Washington, causing massive fires and other damage, and in the other, a passenger train bound for Seattle derailed in Montana, killing three people and injuring dozens. Here, if a train had derailed where Reiche placed the shunt, numerous nearby homes and the train crew would have been badly affected.”
Railroads are considered “critical infrastructure” in the United States but remain vulnerable to assault across the country.
“I worked closely with the Obama administration to create strong rules to make the transport of oil by rail safer,” U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen said following the December 2020 incident. “Clearly there may be more work to do.”
At this point, the Cascadia Daily News was unable to confirm any shunt placements or other attacks on BNSF Railway tracks throughout 2021 and 2022, and the FBI does not collect data on shunt-related incidents.
BNSF did not respond to CDN’s requests for comment.
This story was updated at 10:26 a.m. January 10 to include additional information.
