Robbers forced a BNSF freight train to stop in Riverside early Thursday and set fire to a shipping container as they attempted to burglarize its cargo, according to authorities. The blaze was reported around 4:40 a.m. in the Chicago Street area, with the train's lead engine stopped in Colton and its last car stretching all the way to Home Gardens by the time crews arrived.
The train had been traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago when the robbers forced the engineer to stop and began burglarizing freight cars, according to BNSF and the Riverside Fire Department, as reported by the Press-Enterprise. The top container in a stack of two was found open and on fire, BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent told the paper. Riverside Fire Department division chief and spokesman Greg White said firefighters initially could not bring their rigs near the train because trucks were blocking access, and the train had to be moved to a location where crews could extinguish the flames.
BNSF police are investigating the attack, and authorities said they had no immediate information about what cargo may have been stolen or whether anyone had been arrested. Kent said BNSF has robust security protocols and works with federal, state, local and tribal police departments in an effort to disrupt criminal activity and arrest offenders. She added that the railroad is focused on preventing train robberies and works to protect customer freight from pickup through delivery.
A Pattern Playing Out Across the High Desert
The Riverside fire is the latest sign of what the Press-Enterprise describes as an increasingly bold and growing trend of train robberies across Southern California, with organized groups stealing thousands of dollars in cargo and reselling it. Just weeks earlier, on Aug. 10, would-be robbers opened fire on BNSF police officers during an attempted heist, though no injuries were reported. That confrontation happened in the Cajon Pass, where one suspect fired from the moving train toward a BNSF officer who was not hit, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, as reported by NBC Los Angeles. Five people were ultimately arrested in connection with that Cajon Pass heist, and tools used for burglarizing trains were recovered from their vehicle.
Weeks after that shooting, authorities recovered $150,000 worth of shoes stolen from a train. Roughly two weeks before the Riverside fire, on Sept. 4, a BNSF train was raided in rural Amboy in San Bernardino County by an estimated 15 to 20 vehicles. Thieves made off with Ariat boots and Dewalt construction equipment valued at $50,000, and two residents of Sinaloa, Mexico, were arrested after an off-duty deputy spotted vehicles matching descriptions of the suspects' box trucks, as previously reported by Hoodline's coverage of the Amboy heist. That raid was reported by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.
Sneakers, Legos and Millions in Losses
The Amboy stretch of track has become something of a hot spot for these organized crews. In November 2024, thieves stole 1,278 pairs of Nike Air Jordan sneakers worth $311,832 from a stopped BNSF container near Amboy, and a separate Amboy-area theft in January 2025 involved roughly $408,000 worth of Nike products, according to the same Hoodline report. Near Barstow, deputies arrested a man and recovered more than $150,000 worth of New Balance shoes following another train burglary, per the Victor Valley Daily Press. Investigators in that same case found $123,000 worth of Brooks running shoes in an abandoned vehicle and $28,000 worth of Lego sets in another van, the newspaper reported, calling that burglary just the latest in a long series of cargo train break-ins reported in the High Desert in recent months.
A March 2026 multi-county operation dismantled organized fencing rings tied to these thefts, seizing $7 million in stolen cargo and $1 million in cash, per the Amboy Hoodline report. Criminal syndicates work together to disable trains, remove cargo and transport the stolen property, often reselling it for profit.
Costly Trend Draws Industry and Legislative Attention
The scale of the problem stretches well beyond Southern California. Major U.S. railroads reported more than 75,000 cargo-theft incidents nationwide in 2025, with losses topping $200 million — a jump of more than 50% year over year, according to the Association of American Railroads. The trade group describes these as coordinated operations carried out by repeat offenders who often work across multiple states and even international borders, disrupting shipments and raising costs for businesses and consumers while posing safety risks to workers and communities. Train cargo thefts can affect packages containing medicine, food and other critical everyday supplies, and California has been ranked among the nation's top three states for supply-chain crime, based on statistics attributed to Verisk CargoNet in the Amboy report.
The railroad industry is pushing for legislation to increase penalties for cargo theft. Kent said the criminal justice system should hold train cargo thieves responsible and prosecute them, framing the fight against these organized crews as an ongoing priority for BNSF even as the incidents keep piling up across the region.
