absolutly disgusting how in this modern age of GPS and train tracking that two trains still manage to be on the same track and hit head on. One aside note my sister is an ER doc and is is swamped working one of the hospitals taking in the trauma cases.

Tragic.

Hi Adam,
I reported this to ureport but thought Id tell you too. I dont know if this means anything but around 4pm I was crossing the tracks in Simi Valley, not too far from where the crash occured and there was someone working on the arm and it was down. I know it was around 4 because I got home a few minutes later and Shep had just started his 4pm ( PT) report. Seems odd to me that 30 minutes prior to the crash there was a problem happening on the tracks minutes away so it could mean something ~ Theres an area between where I crossed over and where the crash was, where the freighter trains stop when another train is coming before crossing to that track into the SF Valley, so maybe it didnt receive the signal that the metrolink was headed in ~

Hey Adam-

I saw your report during the Hurricane Ike coverage, and it really sad and tragic what happened. I heard the death toll might reach up to 20.

All the families of the lives lost in that train crash have my deepest sympathies and condolences.

God Bless to them.

I also hope they find out what caused the two trains to be on the same track at the exact time.

Adam-

Another update with the Venezuela situation:

—————–

The United States stopped trying to be polite Friday in an escalating diplomatic shoving match with the populist leaders of Venezuela and Bolivia. Washington slapped new sanctions on three aides close to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and called him weak and desperate. The Venezuelan ambassador got the boot for good measure, a move that was purely for show. Chavez had already brought his man home.

——————

Terrible. Our hearts go out to all.

Indeed tragic– it has been stated the cause is still not known but why were two trains on the same track? 17 dead?

Sounds like Natalie might have a possible answer-

I can’t get your live video to work–

Hope that it is not as terrible as we have been told.

Prayers go out to all.

Hello to everyone.

Montana

The only word that comes to mind is Tragedy.

Prayers to all the victims and their loved ones.

This is awful and I wish it would have gotten more coverage than it has so far. But of course the hurricane was dominating the news. Can’t imagine what these famalies are going through. People just heading out from work on a Friday and the unbelievable happens…Now they say one fo the engineers, who died, missed a red light on the tracks…amazing..

I can’t imagine the horror of it all. I hope the cause can be determined and measures can be taken so this never happens again.

With global positioning equip now so inexpensive, I can not believe this kind of accident can even happen. How tough is it to link the signal system to global positioning equipment that should be on every train. So an engineer misses a red light, and people perish in a horrendous crash. I want to know how a train can go through a red light, and alarms are not going off all over the place. My wife takes Amtrak in this area once in awhile, and she tells me freight trains always have the right away. Likely because freight trains do not stop easily. I would also like to know how the track switching is involvede in this. The Metro had to be on a side track to allow the freight to go by, so if a red light is on, you would think the switch would not be set to allow the metro to traverse onto the main track until the green light comes on.

Gosh, so sad.

God bless them all.

Hey Adam-

I just heard that the death toll has risen up to 23. I guess its a terrible as a lot of people thought it would be. Its really heartbreaking and sad

Apparently an error by the engineer, who failed to stop at a signal, was blamed for this horrific tragedy.

Hi Susan-AZ,

I work about 15 minutes from where this happened, and a lot of my colleagues take that route.

The train tracks around here are usually ONE track. So, when another train is coming from the opposing side, the other train is held on to the side of the track so that the other one may pass. (I believe)

So, the fact that the engineer missed or skipped the red light, means that the timing went off – and this accident occurred.

It is so tragic, and I haven’t been able to get the sadness out of my heart. To imagine, Friday night.. people going home to go out, or relax.. and many taking the train due to high gas prices and/or freeway traffic.. and for something this horrendous to happen.

Well this was all over at least the abc local channel last night, pre-empting all other programming until about 10 or 11 pm.

Another report had a union rep saying that engineers can work 12 hrs in a day but that it can be spread over 18 hrs. He suggested that this 5-6 times a week could lead to fatigue. Sure sounds like it could.

Of course we don’t know yet if he could have had a medical problem or something. Horrible.

One thing that I wondered looking at the pictures last night was what the metro rail cars are constructed of. They looked like they might not be made as sturdy as the freight train box cars, but really hard to tell.

The previous worst wreck for the system when a guy deliberately parked his suv on the tracks, allegedly because he was planning to commit suicide and changed his mind–he was just convicted of murder very recently–had an issue that was raised.

apparently at least at that time, not sure if its still true, the engines are on one end of the train so going on way they are pulling, going the other way they are pushing which it was alleged made them more dangerous.

I’m wondering trains used to have a “cow-catcher” device on the front to deflect cows, and I guess other things aside. That wouldn’t work with a head on like this. But most metrolink crashes seem to be a vehicle trying to beat the crossing arm (there was another one the same day elsewhere in the system where that happened with the driver of the car being a fatality). I wonder if some kind of device like a modern version of the cow catcher might be useful for some obstructions anyway.

Also, didn’t see it reported here, but the metrolink trains are double deck and each car reportedly holds up to 150 people seated. No seatbelts and people are also allowed to stand. I think the seats face each other so that some are facing forward and some backwards.

I’m not sure how many were pulled alive out of this first car, but doesn’t sound likely that there are any more in there that are alive.

I guess by now many of the family members have word of their loved ones on the train, but not all, and it was reported that 2 bodies in a hospital were unidentified. Of course if someone lived alone….

I was watching the events of the horrible train crash on Friday evening. I found it disturbing the view from the air of several casualities. I feel bad for the families and what they might have viewed. It could have been a loved one easily recognized. I am even more disturbed at the overwhelming media coverage and response of the police force when it was revealed that one casuality was a policeman. The law enforcement officers all lined up for the body to be removed. I am sorry for the deceased and the family, but each and every person that died that day is equally as important. There was no receiving line for every casuality that came from the tragedy. I am concerned that many of the officers were not attempting to rescue but were observed standing around looking confused. On that note, were the streets properly secured throughout the city?

Adam, the question that has yet to be asked, is why was the engine of the Metrolink train not in the front of the train. The freight train engine went inside the shell of a passenger train car, it did not hit head-on with the Metrolink engine. These deaths could have been prevented or at least a few of them, had the Metrolink engine been positioned in front of the train and had hit head-on with the freight train.

Several years ago, a concern was voiced about the Metrolink trains running with the engine pushing the rest of the cars of the train. Apparently, when the Metrolink train goes in one direction, the engine is in front and it pulls the rest of the cars. But, when it goes back on the same tracks, instead of moving the engine to the other end of the train cars to get into a pulling position, Metrolink simply pushes the train keeping the engine in the rear of the train.

The concern back then was if a Metrolink train hit a vehicle at a crossing. Metrolink’s solution was to install a guard on the front car of the train, instead of moving the engines to the front of the train.

Besides the engineer of the freight train making a tragic mistake, the devastation of this unfortunate accident could have been prevented had the officials of Metrolink chosen to pull each train with an engine, and not to push the train with an engine, thus exposing the front train car to such a devasting accident!

Not too many years ago, an Amtrak regional ran into Conrail motive power in Chase, Maryland as the result of Conrail having been granted an exemption from equipping their locomotives with ATC. Instead of addressing that issue, with its obvious legal consequences, the focus of blame was directed at the Conrail engineer’s poor performance and his absolutely irresponsible actions.
In the Chatsworth case, the technology existed to ensure extremely safe and efficient operation of the trains. Those who define the operation of Metrolink, decided to place the safety of the travelling public behind demanding that ATC be part of the package.
The Union will run to blaming faulty signals or overwork; if that is the case, they must expend every resource available to ensure it never happens again. If operator fatigue is a factor, and your membership can do without the overtime, strike for well-defined limits on duty hours. And demand ATC.

And the travelling public? Ask yourself the following: have the people who I vote for payed much attention to safe rail travel?

The disgusting part is the union mentallity of the engineers and conductors who constantley disregard passenger concerns and safety. Numerous times errors can be overheard on the walkie talkies about missed calls so its no surprise that one missed the red light and caused this accident. The surprising part is that it does not happen on a weekly basis. They should drug test everyone involved but then again there would be no one left to support the liberal agenda and pay the union dues.

KCBS Los Angeles is reporting that the engineer was texting with teenage enthusiasts with the last message received from the engineer one minute prior to the crash, which seemingly corresponds to the missed signal.

I dont pretent to know how safety rules work , as far as Trains are involved. The cause stated here is …”The Train Operator missed seeing the RED Light. It seems to me that if missing the Red Light means such destruction, something is very wrong. I would think that there would be many, many safety alerts such as …..Verbal Warning…….Computer Info on Trains directions and times. If you look at Air Travel…….you have all sorts of Safety Procedures……Air Traffic controlers……..Buzzers…….Radar Warnings….Radio contact…If this Trains only warning was a Red Light…….should that light go off or not be seen for some reason…..this is a Tragedy…..there should be as many Safety Factors involved , to warn that engineer as we have in Air Travel. I can’t imagine this horrible accident happening because a Red light was missed………….

KCBS also says an alarm went off at Metrolink as the red light was missed but the wasn’t time to Metrolink HQ action (it is a very short distance from the signal/ one-two track split to the hard obscured curve

To Ron – your comments assumed that the Metrolink was being pushed, not pulled, by its engine.
In fact, the Metrolink engine WAS at the front of the train. The reason you can’t see it in some of the news coverage is that it was shoved about 30 ft deep inside (like a collapsing telescope) of the front passenger car, by the force of the head-on collision with the freight locomotive engine.

Sadly, that is why so few survived riding in the front-most passenger carl.

The latest report on CBS news is that there is a possibility that a group of teen train enthusiasts were exchanging text messages with their friend, the Metrolink engineer, up to 1 minute prior to the crash. If that turns out to be true, it will be the greatest shame of all, as it could explain why the engineer missed the signal to halt his train to allow the freight train to pass (apparently a daily event on this route).

Even more bizarre is that the quoted teens, who showed their cell phone message, felt their friend was very professional and would never make a mistake. Perhaps they didn’t understand the gravity of exchanging text messages with someone they knew to be operating a locomotive and in care of hundreds of passengers, and it seems their “friend” may not have grasped it either, at the cost of his life and dozens of others.

To Ron,

I think you made a comment re the engineer of the freight train making a tragic mistake. It was the Metro engineer that missed the light. I am not an Engineer, but as I stated earlier, freight trains are generally given the right of way. It can take well over a mile for a freight train to stop, even with full emergency braking. A Metroliner or for that matter an Amtrak train can stop in much less distance. Plus the energy to bring the train back up to speed is nowhere near what it takes to get a freight up and moving again.

Let’s be clear about this. Being a railroad engineer is not just a job and you don’t just take a driving test to get your license. In the days when I WAS a railroader (OK, it was almost a half century ago but what was true then is still true now) an engineer could not operate on a stretch of track until he had passed an examination demonstrating a knowledge of the location of every signal, every siding and every speed limit in the territory. Railroaders carry on their person a detailed time table for their region with daily updates from every operating department. They are required to produce that time table for any supervisor: conductors, dispatchers, train masters, yard masters, and any variety of superintendent (by the by, “superintendent” is an actual railroad rank, the chief officer of an operating branch). To be an engineer, you have to know every inch of your territory and any changes that may occur in it.

All of us have had the experience of arriving at an intersection just as the light turned red and we sat there fuming as nothing else passed through the intersection. What a waste. Railroads are not like that. There are no intersections on the tracks and the signals don’t change every two minutes so that everyone can have a chance to move. On the railroad, a red signal on your track means one thing and one thing only: THERE IS SOMETHING AHEAD OF YOU ON YOUR TRACK! You can’t beat the light, you can’t get ahead of the other guy, you can’t pass and you can’t weave in and out. If there is something on your track, you will hit it or it will hit you. If you are a paper-mache commuter train and the thing ahead of you is heavy-rail freight……

Engineers do NOT “ignore” red signals. Spin me another yarn, but NOT that one. At one time all trains had two sets of eyes watching the rail and signals ahead. The railroads called “firemen” a redundancy, “featherbedding” – and by the seventies they were gone. At one time the line was divided into “blocks” with towers and tower operators checking that the line was clear within their areas of supervision. They’re gone. At one time, those tower operators set signals over and next to the tracks to alert engineers to conditions ahead. On most lines those have been replaced by “in-cab” signals transmitted from dispatchers offices (“dispatcher” is another railroad rank, the ONLY railroad official who can compel an engineer to move and relieve him of duty if he refuses to comply), often hundreds of miles away, which are in turn fed by sensors recording train locations and signal states on the line. External signals are a thing of the past and dispatchers, who are the railroad’s equivalent of air-traffic controllers, have no human feedback to rely on.

Engineers do NOT “ignore” red signals. “Contractors” from some other company do not run your trains or operate in your territory without passing your tests and obeying your rules and reporting to your dispatchers. If that CAN happen, then the railroad is beyond “screw-up”. It’s not the fault of the engineer, it’s the fault of the railroad. “Ignored a signal”? There hasn’t been time to determine just what the readings on his cab indicators were. “Ignored?” If a dispatcher had assured him the indicators were in error and he should proceed at normal speed, he probably would have done as he’d been instructed. When the NTSB is willing to certify under oath that no such event occured, I might be willing to accept the verdict of “operator error”…. but if the railroad is hiring operators of that quality, it still has a lot to answer for. With sensors and decision-making systems that can tell how fast a train is going and if it should be going that fast (or even moving at all!), blaming the dead engineer is just a trifle ingenuous…. and may even allow the railroad to dodge penalties for negligence and malfeasance.

If anyone can cite an instance in the last thirty years where a railroad accepted responsibility for either system failure or a failure of operating procedure, I’d be delighted to hear about it.

Comment to Ron’s question about was the engine in front or not. I used to live in the San Fernando Valley for nearly 45 years. I lived near the tracks in Northridge and would see the trains go by everyday. It was common practice for the Metrolink to use the push pull method in their commuter trains going through the valley. It is hard to tell from the pictures I saw but it appears that the train was being pulled in this particular situation. The field reports say that the commuter train engine was pushed back into the first passenger car. As other readers have commented it seems very hard to believe that with all the technology available today that any train could run a red signal block.

Adam-

I heard that the train engineer was apparently text messaging on this cell phone minutes before the horrific crash.

And the search for the crash victims ends with the death toll at 25/

The video below:

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=174043

Just heard the GPS system, mentioned in an earlier post, is not part of the metrolink system.

I suspect, it will be in the future.

Sadly, too late for all the people involved in this crash.

When this incident occurred, I said to my spouse, watch Metrolink try to subcontract away their invovlement in this accident. Sure enough, Metrolink blames a subcontractor. I’d like to know the agreements Metrolink has with their subcontractors, and who decides those terms and rules. Are the victims left holding the bag?

Reports say there were 225 people on the train. 25 are confirmed dead. 135 have been counted among the injured .I have not heard reports of any missing people.What is the account of the other 65 people?

Hi Sara!

Sounds like the engineer fell asleep~ This tragedy makes it worse when it hits so close to home especially since you have colleagues who might have experienced this tragedy. xxx

Adam- thanks for the updates!! xxx

My son, who lives near the crash site, was on his bike up in the hills behind it and took about 100 photos of the site just after it happened. He said it was terrible.

Comment by R.E. Phelan
September 14th, 2008 at 12:36 am

“…but if the railroad is hiring operators of that quality, it still has a lot to answer for. With sensors and decision-making systems that can tell how fast a train is going and if it should be going that fast (or even moving at all!), blaming the dead engineer is just a trifle ingenuous…. and may even allow the railroad to dodge penalties for negligence and malfeasance.”

——————-

Thank you for your post.

In California, the Metrolink will not be able to absolve itself from any negligence. They will attempt to distribute the ‘cost’ of the negligence, by saying the engineer was a subcontractor.

All that will accomplish is to bring in the subcontractor company as a co-defendant. Metrolink has to only be 1% negligent, to be included in the claims for injury and wrongful death. Although, their negligence could be reduced by that of the engineer, and engineers employer, they are all ultimately responsible for the actions of the employee.

The latest reports do indicate the train was being pulled, not pushed. The engineer was likely not asleep since he text messaged someone one minute before the crash. The switches I mentioned in a previous post are suspect. One was forced open. The initial comment is that it was forced open by the metrolink. Hopefully the former engineer who posted some very detailed information can give us some feedback re this. I would think a switch would have to first divert the train supposed to stop onto a siding. Then the enginner would keep the train in motion until the entire train was clear of the main track and then stop. So if the first switch did it’s job and diverteed the Metro onto the siding, then is it possible for the Metro to somehow defeat the second switch which allows the stopped train back onto the main track? I would think that these switches would forcibly derail the train as opposed to allowing the train to overide them. These are questions I for one would like answered.

I know this has been talked about already, but I normally take this exact train home everyday. However, this last Friday I happened to go out of town around noon and avoided this horrendous crash. This train was indeed being pulled. All the Metrolink trains on this line are pushed in the morning when traveling south, and pulled in the afternoon when going north. My first though when seeing the pictures was “where’s the engine?” Only to then see a pic from a different angle where the Metrolink engine was shoved through the first passenger car. What kept this from being a bigger mess was the fact that this train, thankfully, didn’t go to the end of the line so it was one car shorter and no where no as crowded as the next 2 trains that follow it. I was glad to see people I knew in news clips walking around, albeit pretty beat up. I hope I get to see most of the people I normally ride with over this next week. My thoughts and prayers are with all the victims and their families. These are not just strangers we ride next to on this line. We all see each other in the mornings going in to work and on our way homes. There is definitely a special kinda of friendship between the riders, and it was so amazing to hear reports of the people that weren’t hurt as bad rushing to get the injured people of the train.

K2, re: negligence post…..and anyone else they can drag into it

Some law firm in LA has this on their website- Personal Injury-

Nick Williams, a teenager who lives near the Chatsworth train crash site, told a Los Angeles television station that he exchanged text messages with the Metrolink engineer in the minutes leading up to the train wreck. Williams told reporters that he received the last text message at 4:22pm, only one minute before the deadly Metrolink crash. Metrolink officials have acknowledged that the train accident happened because the engineer ran a red light..

(what appalls me is this law firm is trying to advertise for business, from this tragedy!!!) ALREADY!

Awaiting facts before jumping to judgement; however, it is Unbelieveable that anyone operating any vehicle or equipment would be texting, emailing or talking on a cell phone- Where are Safety Standards for companies that allow and /or get away with this? Employees should not even be allowed to use devices until they are at a full stop, at the very least- ORIN AN EMERGENCY!! “If” texting caused the accident, company and employee should be prosecuted.
Why was there another train on the track? Awaiting facts. All very SENSELESS!! Regardless of what happened, it should not of happened. It is ridiculous that peoples lives are in the hands of others who lack common sense- if that is what happened… Why was there another train on the same track?

We can talk all we want about negligence and faulty old style ground mounted signals possibly not working, etc., but the real issue is the glaring need for technical modernization. Easily within current technology standards could be a system using GPS and other satellite tracking devices mounted at a locomotive engineers position on each and every type of train. These systems would allow train personnel, to watch on a screen, independent of train traffic controllers, all other traffic in front or behind or intersecting rails say to a distance of 30 miles in all directions. And if a hazardous situation is detected, a painfully loud alarm would sound so even if the crew were all asleep or involved in an important chess game they could respond. And, of course, it would be critically important that this system should be accompanied by a complete backup duplicate.

I’m not into railroading but one doesn’t need to be to see the possible hazardous scenarios for not only a single track operation. Even with double tracks an approaching train could easily become derailed for any number of reasons and block the other set of tracks.

The Railroad operators in this Chatsworth accident might have said it’s too costly to buy, install and maintain all the new gadgets, but I’d bet they and their insurance companies now think it would’ve been a bargain.

????

By law, railroad carriers have a duty to maintain the reasonable safety of their tracks, particularly around railroad crossings, and can be held liable if an accident occurs where there are defective or insufficient numbers of warning lights and signs. Additionally, railroad engineers and crews have a duty to keep a lookout for potential problems and to sound the train’s blowhorn when approaching potentially dangerous areas. Persons crossing or near railroad tracks also have a duty to act reasonably. California recognizes the doctrine of comparative fault. If a person is partially responsible for an accident, any damage award he or she receives can be reduced by the extent to which he or she was responsible.

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NTSB last night just revealed that they too are blaming the engineer after looking at the data. very sad. I was hoping for a signal fault and not human error. However. They still havent talked to the other engineer yet. So, I do find it weird for them to give a report on findings without talking to the 2nd engineer.

the metrolink spokewoman who first blamed the crash on the engineer has resigned her post over the weekend after the metrolink board had a meeting. Looks like she was forced to resign. I guess they didnt like the way she did her job. I have to say from what I saw she wasnt very professional in her dealings with the TV media. I mean she didnt come off as a topflight spokewoman.

R.E. Phelan is correct!!

I worked as a freight conductor 30 years ago, and I do not believe for one minute the Engineer was completly at fault! I do believe and lived it that the Railroad seldom will take the responsibility for anything.

We had Automatic Train Control 30 years ago, and even if the engineer fell asleep there were safeguards that should have prevented this, not to mention the 2nd person on the head end would have taken some sort of action to prevent it. In today’s day with all the computers and gps and all the other gizmos they have in place I simply find it hard to believe there was any kind of operator error.

I’m wondering…and i know its way too early…and i mean no disrespect…but.. is it too easy to place blame on the human, when the human has deceased?
just a thought that was rolling around in my lil brain.

Adam-

Here is the most current article about this horrific situation:

————–

Commuters reunited Monday for the first workday since a deadly train crash, embracing fellow riders—many known only by sight—and mourning those who died in the accident.

Bouquets and cards were left along the length of the Simi Valley loading platform, many left by passengers who said they felt a sense of kinship with the people who shared their daily ride to Los Angeles. The comuter train smashed into a freight engine Friday just before the Simi Valley station, killing 25 people.

Several commuters said they were surprised at how light passenger traffic was Monday morning.

————

The state’s top rail safety regulator said Monday he would seek an emergency order banning train operators from using cell phones, as federal investigators sought to determine whether the engineer of a commuter train was text messaging before a crash that killed 25 people.

What a horrible tragedy.

What’s the first action Metrolink took? Accepted the resignation of the spokeswoman who first stated that the engineer was at fault. Mounting evidence indicates she was correct, but she probably didn’t submit a written statement seeking approval from Metrolink management before making the announcement to the public.

It’s pretty sad when the “state’s top safety regulator” must seek to prevent operators from using cell phones. When did legislation replace common-sense?

When all is said and done, I’ll bet the authorities will prove that this was preventable.

I heard that the teenagers texting the train conductor were using twitter.com

The engineer involved in the deadly wreck of a commuter train was text messaging while on duty the day of the crash.

The Safety Board requested the cell phone records of engineer Robert Sanchez after two teenage train buffs said they had exchanged text messages with him shortly before the train collided.

In a statement, they did not say how many messages were found in the records or if any texting occurred just before the collision. However, the teens told KCBS-TV last week that they received a text message from the engineer at 4:22 p.m. — a minute before the collision.

Adam-

An article that might affect all the residents living in CA:
———-

California regulators have issued a temporary ordering banning train operators from using cell phones while on duty.

The California Public Utilities Commission unanimously passed an emergency order Thursday to ban the use of cell phones and other personal electronic devices while operating a train. It comes less than a week after a Southern California commuter train ran head-on into a freight train, killing 25 people and injuring more than 130 others.

Federal authorities confirmed that on the day of the crash, the train engineer was text-messaging on his cell phone while on duty. Authorities say he ran a red light and slammed into the freight train in Chatsworth on Friday.

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