Metrolink: Engineer Responsible For Deadly Crash

LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― A commuter train engineer who ran a stop signal was blamed Saturday for the nation's deadliest rail disaster in 15 years, a wreck that killed at least 25 people with more bodies still to be pulled from the smoldering, twisted metal.

A preliminary investigation found that "it was a Metrolink engineer that failed to stop at a red signal and that was the probable cause" of Friday's collision with a freight train in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said. She said she believes the engineer, whose name was not released, is dead.

"When two trains are in the same place at the same time somebody's made a terrible mistake," said Tyrrell, who was shaking and near tears as she spoke with reporters.

Emergency crews found more victims early Saturday, as they delicately picked apart the mangled wreckage of a commuter train that collided head-on with a freight train on the same track.

More victims were feared trapped in the wrecked Metrolink commuter train. About 135 people were injured.

Los Angeles police Officer Spree Desha, 35, was among those killed in the crash. She joined the department in 2001 and worked at North Hollywood Division. Most recently she was assigned to the department's Office of Operations.

Dozens of police officers at the scene of the crash stood solemnly near the crash site, knowing that a comrade had died in the wreckage. As Desha's body was removed from the train, firefighters carried the stretcher to the waiting hands of LAPD officers, who then carried their fallen comrade past a long line of saluting officers and sheriff's deputies.

The impact of the crash rammed the Metrolink engine backward into a passenger car, which rested on its side with the engine still inside it early Saturday, and accordioned the freight train cars. Two other Metrolink cars remained upright. Crews had to put out a fire under part of the train.

During the night, the teams used hydraulic jacks to keep the passenger car from falling over and other specialized rescue equipment to gently tear apart the metal.

Fire Capt. Steve Ruda said the goal was to eliminate every piece of metal and gradually work down into the passenger spaces, but by midnight crews were just getting through the top deck of the double-decker train.

"There's human beings in there and it's going to be painstaking to get them out," Ruda said. "They'll have to surgically remove them."

His firefighters had never seen such carnage, he said. The crews would have to work carefully to document the incident for investigators and so relatives could identify bodies, Ruda said.

Officials say there were 222 people on the Metrolink train and four Union Pacific employees aboard the freight train.

"This is the worst accident I've ever seen," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said. "Clearly the injuries are going to mount and so are the fatalities."

Kulm said the federal investigation will be headed by the National Transportation Safety Board, while his agency will conduct a review of whether any federal rail safety regulations were violated.

Union Pacific spokeswoman Zoe Richmond said it is common in California for freight and commuter trains to be on one track.

"You see it a lot in California where commuter trains share tracks with freight trains," Richmond said, adding she couldn't speculate about the cause of the crash.

Dr. Marc Eckstein, medical director for the city Fire Department, said 135 people were taken to hospitals -- about 85 of them in serious or critical condition.

In the initial hours after the disaster, firefighters treated the injured at three triage areas near the wreck, and helicopters flew in and out of a nearby landing area on evacuation flights. Dazed and injured passengers sat on the ground and wandered about.

Leslie Burnstein saw the crash from her home and heard screams of agony as she ran through a haze of smoke toward the wreckage. She pulled victims out one by one.

"It was horrendous," said Burnstein, a psychologist. "Blood was everywhere. ... I heard people yelling, screaming in pain, begging for help."

Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said the Metrolink train left Union Station in downtown Los Angeles and was headed northwest to Moorpark in Ventura County. The trains collided at about 4:30 p.m. in the Chatsworth area of the San Fernando Valley, near a 500-foot-long tunnel underneath Stoney Point Park.

On the north side of the tunnel, there is a siding, a length of track where one train can wait for another to pass, Tyrrell said.

Until Friday, the worst disaster in Metrolink's history occurred on Jan. 26, 2005, in suburban Glendale when a man parked a gasoline-soaked SUV on railroad tracks. A Metrolink train struck the SUV and derailed, striking another Metrolink train traveling the other way, killing 11 people and injuring about 180 others. Juan Alvarez was convicted this year of murder for causing the crash.

That was the worst U.S. rail tragedy since March 15, 1999, when an Amtrak train hit a truck and derailed near Bourbonnais, Ill., killing 11 people and injuring more than 100.

In this day and age, I would think we have the technology to make it impossible for a train engineer to run a red light. While it might not be practical or cost effective everywhere, I would think that in very high traffic areas it would be. In addition to stupid carelessness (like the texting while driving a train that’s been reported as a possibility here), what if an engineer suddenly has a heart attack or brain aneurysm burst? Sure these things are rare in people who’ve had annual physicals and not shown warning signs, but killing 25 people, seriously injuring many more, and shutting down a Los Angeles area commuter rail line and freight line for at least a couple of days is not the sort of thing that should be allowed to happen if there’s a reasonable way to avoid it. So much is automated on these trains, you’d they could automate brakes activating if a red light is passed — perhaps with a manual override, so that if some unusual circumstance exists (e.g. light known to be malfunctioning), the engineer could release it or even manually stop it from engaging in the first place.

“The Amtrak crash at Chase, Md., which killed 25 people and injured about 200, may have had a similar cause. In the Amtrak case, a Conrail engineer “ran through a stop sign” and wound up on the track in front of a speeding north-bound passenger train, the Colonial.

More than a decade ago, all Conrail locomotives had a “dead man switch.” If the engineer failed to obey a wayside signal (to stop, for instance) the engine would stop, immediately.

Obviously, this commuter train did not have a dead man switch. The engineer failed to obey the signals. The train did not stop automatically. Why didn’t it have that switch? In the Amtrak case, it was union opposition to such switches.”

Billybob, I generally respect your postings, but have to respond to this because most of your facts are wrong.

In the Chase wreck, the Conrail engine move was running east, same direction as passenger train #94. The leading Conrail engine had cab signals, but did not have them hooked in with the air to result in a penalty if the engineman failed to acknowledge a downward change in the cab signal. That was the _normal_ arrangement on Conrail locomotives in 1987 (I worked for them prior to that date, and afterwards, although I was working for Amtrak on the day of the crash).

The cab signal “whistles” on some engines could be ear-splitting and overpowering, and did not automatically “cut out” when locomotives were running in a trailing position. Often, brakemen riding in the second cab would “tape them over” to reduce the noise they made, since they couldn’t be completely shut off.

It happened that the lead unit on the Conrail lite move on _this_ particular day DID have the cab signal whistle taped over.

By the way, the cab signal whistle had NOTHING to do with the “deadman feature” of the locomotive, which was a foot pedal the engineman had to keep depressed. Take your foot off, and within 6 seconds, you’d get a “penalty application”, applying the brakes and stopping the train.

The crew of the lite engines that morning was at fault for using drugs and not paying attention to what was going on in front of them. They missed the “Approach” signal prior to the Stop Signal at Gunpow interlocking, and then probably saw the Stop Signal - but too late. I believe the engineman “dumped” the locomotives (put the brakes into emergency), but lite locomotives have the highest weight-to-brake ratio of anything on the rails and DO NOT stop quickly. The result was that they passed the signal, ran through the switch to the track #94 was approaching on, and came to a stop - IN FRONT OF THE ONCOMING TRAIN, which was running at 125+ mph. The passenger train engineman saw events transpiring in front of him, and dumped HIS train, but again, 12 passenger cars and two locomotives moving at 100+mph take some distance to stop, even in emergency. We saw the results.

After the wreck, the cab signals were interconnected to the air brakes so that failure to acknowledge a cab signal change would result in a penalty application. Also, the grating “air whistles” were changed to “electronic warblers” that automatically cut out on trailing cabs.

I guarantee you that the locomotive on the Metrolink train has safety apparatus that is FAR more sophisticated than that of engines (both freight and passenger) at the time of the Chase wreck. The old-fashioned “deadman pedal” has now been replaced by electronic “alertors” that monitor the movement of controls, and require acknowledgement if nothing is detected within a specific time interval (often based on how fast the locomotive is moving).

To say that the the “Amtrak unions” are “opposed” to such switches is ridiculous. I happen to BE an “Amtrak union member” (though I don’t much care for union politics), and a federally-certified locomotive engineman, and very very few of them would intentionally defeat or workaround a safety system desigined to save their own lives. After all, if a train is wrecked, who gets there first?

You are correct, of course, in stating that the engineman “failed to obey the signals”. This wreck illustrates how quickly things can go wrong if one isn’t paying attention up there to the things that NEED to be paid attention to.

There’s an old song that goes:
Life is like a mountain railroad
With an engineer that’s brave
We must make the run successful
From the cradle to the grave
Watch the hills, the curves, the tunnels
Never falter, never fail
Keep your hand upon the throttle
And your eye upon the rail

True back when it was written.
Still true today...

- John

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