RAILROAD YARD BOMB FIND SPARKS SEARCH.

Byline: Cassandra Sweet Associated Press 

The owner of a railroad yard where Army experts detonated a Vietnam War-era bomb Wednesday plans to hire a geophysicist to survey the area for more bombs.

Several hours after a team of Army and local explosives experts disposed of the 250-pound bomb found Tuesday, Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley said construction in the area is being halted until the tests for more bombs are complete.

Bromley said Union Pacific would bring a contractor today to the site where crews who had been rehabilitating old track found the bomb. He said the geophysical survey would include ground-penetrating radar and conductivity and magnetic tests.

``At least we can dismiss a lot of stuff as junk and find things that look suspicious. We think this is the safest way to approach the problem,'' Bromley said.

After about 400 people were evacuated from their homes, demolition experts used plastic explosives to detonate the torpedo-shape, three-foot-long metal bomb found buried in an area where a trainload of wartime bombs had exploded 24 years ago.

The concussion from the blast could be felt for miles and shrapnel from the bomb went flying, but there was no damage and people were allowed to return to their homes within minutes.

Many of the people evacuated within a half-mile of the blast stayed at an emergency center set up at a nearby high school.

The bomb was uncovered Tuesday afternoon in an area between two parallel sets of tracks. A sheriff's spokesman said it was one of several hundred bombs that exploded or went missing in 1973 when a trainload of explosives en route to U.S. troops in Vietnam blew up while passing through the rail yard.

The decision by Union Pacific officials to complete a search for more bombs in the area might have been influenced by local fears. Railroad officials said they believed they had made the best search possible after the 1973 blast.

``There is a good chance if there is one bomb out there, there are more bombs out there,'' said Sacramento County sheriff's Sgt. Jim Cooper. ``They are going to take a good look at this before they start digging again.''

Some residents who had witnessed the 1973 blast said they thought there could be more bombs buried in the railway yard.

``It was almost like an atomic bomb, with windows shattering, people being shaken from their beds, people scattering everywhere,'' said Vickie Wells, who witnessed the 1973 explosion.

``I've been through it once. Why did it take them so many years to find it again?'' said Wells, adding that she thought there could be more buried bombs.

An Army demolition crew arrived at the site about 8 p.m. Tuesday. After a brief investigation, they dug a hole four feet deep about an eighth of a mile from where the bomb was found, placed the bomb inside, covered the hole with earth and built a berm around it before finally detonating the bomb. Detective Bob Morgan said this construction forced the thrust of the explosion upward and downward, to avoid any impact to surrounding structures.

The rail yard is several miles north of Interstate 80 in this community about 20 miles northeast of Sacramento.

On April 28, 1973, a trainload of ammunition bound for the Vietnam War exploded in a daylong series of blasts. No one was killed, but the spectacular detonations sent residents fleeing and filled the sky with enormous plumes of smoke.

Investigators said 18 government-owned boxcars - each carrying more than 330 bombs weighing 250 pounds each - exploded, devastating the rail yard and the surrounding area.

Numerous unexploded bombs and hundreds of pounds of bomb residue were collected after the 1973 blasts and taken to military facilities for disposal.