I know that there was another chain on this subject, but it never seemed to finalize the event. The event as I remember it was a train derail and explosion. I was in the Army at the time and want to say it happened while I was overseas which would have put it in '76 or '77.
Until I looked at the last chain on the subject, I would have said that the incident took place in Farmers Branch or Carrolton..but maybe not.
I think it made the front page of the Dallas newspapers with a photo of the explosion. If not the front page, it certainly made it somewhere in the papers as I remember the pic of the explosion.

I seem to remember one in the Garland area, near Miller Rd., around that time. It seems like it happened in the late afternoon or evening, possibly on a Sunday.

Your recollection seems closest. I would have said it was on the border between Dallas and Garland just north of LBJ between Plano Rd. and Jupiter. It was on the Santa Fe "New Line" built in 1955.
Tank car explosion? I was not living here at the time but I read about it.

I don't remember the day but it must have been 78 summer,I lived at the Camp House,we were watching tv and heard the most horrible ka-boom,scared the life out of us.We could not tell where it came from,I thought it had come from down on Lakeland,those trains had been going about 55 miles an hour during the night which would wake us up...but it wasn't it was across the lake over on Northwest Hwy,maybe and Miller.I went up on the balconies and you could see the flames and smoke,it was about dusk.

Sunday night, February 20, 1977, at 7:30PM, on the Santa Fe tracks near the intersection of Forest Lane and Skillman. A tank carrying liquified propane is what blew up. The Dallas News said that people as far away as Fort Worth and Canton could see the series of three explosions, and a pilot could see them from about 150 miles away. LBJ was closed off, as the trail of fiery propane quickly spread about a mile back down the track towards the freeway (I remember my sister being hopelessly stuck in the jam-up there.)
I was deep in Oak Cliff that evening, and the windows rattled clear down there! The Waffle House on Kingsley at LBJ had its windows blown out, and a car traveling on LBJ had its windshield shattered.

Can't remember the exact time frame but we were in line to buy tickets to a movie at the Northpark I & II Theatres when the explosions happened. It was like lightning struck next to us while simultanously, the whole northeast sky lit up like an atomic bomb had gone off. Very freightening.

I started a thread about this many moons ago. We had a lively discussion about it, if I remember correctly. Lots of great contributions. My mother and little brother (10 at the time) were eastbound on LBJ, just passing under Greenville Ave. when she blew. According to mom, she thought WWIII had begun. She recalls our VW bus actually vibrating from the blasts, and the light was blinding. Big, intense mushroom clouds rising into the night sky. They had a terrible time trying to exit off the highway, and my brother was screaming the entire time. I bet she needed a strong drink when she finally made it home. Check out the search mode if you're interested in reading up on what we previously discussed.

Some claim it was industrial sabotage of Fina's only production volume of refined anhydrous "Pink Air"--nearly a decade late in delivery.
[Search previous threads for "Pink Air."]

I remember this explosion, too. I witnessed it from Richardson, and a family member expressed the fear that T. I. might be blowing up. The eastern sky was filled with flames more than once, then glowed eerily for some time afterward. It was a frightening sight. My high school English class had just finished reading that great literary work, 'Alas, Babylon.' How thankful were we that its fulfillment was not what we experienced that night.
Holly

I under-reported the damage...LOTS of glass blown out at the apartments on nearby Leisure Drive (and doors blown in,) and a day care center near the explosion site was gutted. Some old Pilgrim Mini-Storage units (remember those?) were demolished or badly damaged. (And thank goodness the all-glass building at 9500 Forest Lane hadn't been built yet.) Apparently one of the three explosions rocketed a tanker car 200 FEET away from the track. By some miracle, no one died.
Last article I could find identified the cause as a derailment, caused by one of the cars losing a steel wheel, which, when it detached, rolled along beside the train for over 1,300 feet, then struck a track switcher control, which then routed half the train off to another track. It didn't disconnect itself when this happened, so the rail cars were crumpled up and torn.

"I under-reported the damage...LOTS of glass blown out at the apartments on nearby Leisure Drive (and doors blown in,) and a day care center near the explosion site was gutted."

Here's another revival of an old thread, if anyone is still around. I've searched for this event online so many times and have never run across this site.

I was six and lived at the Candlewood Creek townhomes on Leisure Drive, and our kitchen window was blown out. At the time of the blast we weren't at home but visiting friends at the Kingsborough Apartments on Miller Road. My friend and I were watching tv, and the radio was also on, playing "Dancing Queen." The whole apartment shook, and we all ran outside and watched the huge plumes of fire. The day care center was also a school. I attended it. It was called Americare. Unaware of the damage to the school, my father drove me to school the day after the explosion, and I remember walking into the front door and seeing all the destruction.

I lived in Garland and was watching The Exorcist when there was an almighty boom and the lights went out. Scared the beejeebies out of me. I was maybe 11 or so. A few years later, on Garland Rd almost at Miller, there was a train derailment on a Saturday or Sunday morning spiling the toxic contents of a tanker car into the backyards of some folks living in that area. I awaoke to an evacuation (but it cut off just at our intersection of Saturn and Anita). My dad was outside 'helping' the police direct traffic. My aunt showed up at our place to make sure we were ok. We spent the day outside watching the events unfold.

Hope