2 reported dead in Metrolink train derailment

[thelakelander]

CHATSWORTH - A Metrolink commuter train and freight train collided today near Stony Point Park in the Chatsworth area, derailing cars from both trains, and crews on the scene indicated that as many as 23 people may have been injured.

The crash was reported around 4:23 p.m. near Heather Lee Lane, south of the Ronald Reagan (118) Freeway and east of Topanga Canyon Boulevard, according to d'Lisa Davies of the city Fire Department.

Firefighters rushed to the scene and worked to douse flames from the crash site, search for possible victims and lead passengers out of the train.

The cause of the collision was not immediately known.

At least seven cars from the freight train derailed, and one car from the Metrolink train toppled onto its side.

http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_10449272

[thelakelander]

Sheriff: Two Killed In Metrolink Crash; Passengers Trapped In Wreckage

Sheriff's Deputy Byron Ward confirmed two deaths in the Friday afternoon wreck.

The crash was reported around 4:23 p.m. near Heather Lee Lane, south of the Ronald Reagan (118) Freeway and east of Topanga Canyon Boulevard, according to d'Lisa Davies of the city Fire Department.

Fire crews on the scene report that there are 10 critically injured people inside that derailed Metrolink train, and three require extrication. Crews said at least 23 people have been injured.

"There could have been as many as 350 people on that train," said Denise Tyrell, a Metrolink spokeswoman.

One passenger car is on its side and on fire. Several people are trapped in the car, and firefighters are working to free the passengers.

Witness Stacy Sullivan told KNBC that the Metrolink train appeared to crash into the rear of the freight train.

"I think the freight train was either stopped or going very slow," Sullivan said.

The Metrolink train was identified as No. 111.

At least seven freight cars derailed.

An air ambulance was called to the scene. A triage area was established near the crash site.

On Jan. 26, 2005, 11 people died and dozens of people were injured when a Metrolink train slammed into a Jeep Cherokee that had been parked on the train tracks in Atwater Village. The train derailed, struck another train traveling in the opposite direction and hit a freight train.

That derailment was the deadliest U.S. train crash since 1999.

On Aug. 20, the man who parked the Jeep on the tracks -- 29-year-old Juan Manuel Alvarez -- was sentenced to 11 consecutive life prison terms.

http://www.knbc.com/news/17462062/detail.html?rss=la&psp=news

[Ocklawaha]

MetroLink cab car and train (running backwards).


MetroLink Locomotive and train.

It's a horrible effect, and makes for great news "SPLASH - SHOCK - AWE" headlines. Massive broken equipment in every direction, some weighing 200,000 pounds or more, smash buildings, pancake automobiles and slice through semi-trucks like a hot knife through butter. Yet the after effect IS noteworthy to Jacksonville and any growing metro. 350 passengers, high speed (I really don't know how fast they were going in this accident, but Metro-Link FLYS at 80-90 MPH in many places). The real lesson for other cities is two-fold.

1. Take any 350 seat airliner, 767, 777, 744, 748, 787, A330, A340, A350 and the A380 and crash it into the end of another aircraft and tally the results. In the train 4 are killed and 25 or so injured, the rest got a band-aid and went home. On the aircraft (or auto-truck collisions) they would be looking for body parts, fingers, rings, wet spots and tennis shoes.

2. Lesson here is consideration of the CAB-CAR in push-pull service. A cab car is just like any other passenger car on the train, except it is designed with a locomotive style cab in one end, usually one window on the left side of the "A" end. Air horns, bells, and susposed FRA collision standards. They do this so the train as a "set" never has to be turned. This adds up to a savings of about 15 minutes at each terminal, meaning over a 24 hour period, and several such sets, save the commuter rail the need for one or more train of locomotive and cars. It saves money and wins praise with the bean counters. As a railroader, I don't like the idea of being pushed at 90 MPH in a car that weighs about equal to a loaded dump truck. I ran the FL DMU at 80 and even though I didn't like the unit, the frame and weight from the power units under the floor, gave one the feel of a stable and solid machine. A solid railroad machine and one that won't crumble on contact with a "Jeep Cherokee".


Classic RDC car, designed with weight, engines, frame to take the punishment of a collision.


Nearly the same spot, an RDC train wrecked in 1956. Yes it tipped over and busted up a lot of people, but look at the condition of the RDC cars themselves = railroad fender bender.

For this reason, I'd vote for the RDC, Contessa or DMU (in that order). Push-pull needs two locomotives, one on each end. Even if one is "DEAD". In the Northeast, they often use retired engines, without the prime mover inside, as "cab cars". It's a much better deal for the passengers and crew, as it places a massive body in front of the train no matter if it's pushing or being pushed. Locomotives are designed for fantastic impacts, "Planes, Train (cars) and Automobiels" certainly are not.


Same crash, different address... 747 no survivors.

That's my view from the throttle...

OCKLAWAHA

[Ocklawaha]

To listen in on the sounds of Los Angeles Commuter Rail, during the recovery of this wreck at Chatsworth. Lots of action, and some interesting remarks by train crews:

http://www.railroadradio.net/content/view/17/145/

This is a multi-route system, of commuter passenger, Amtrak and freight that converges at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. Seriously, it is not that much different then our own situation in Jacksonville, the day after the trains start rolling.

OCKLAWAHA

[thelakelander]

Metrolink says its train's engineer ignored signal in Chatsworth crash



Had the engineer stopped, a spokeswoman says, the accident would not have occurred. At least 23 have been reported killed and 135 injured in the collision of the commuter train and a freight train.

By Esmeralda Bermudez, , Garrett Therolf and Gale Holland
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

12:52 PM PDT, September 13, 2008

Metrolink officials said today that an engineer on their commuter train that collided head-on Friday afternoon with a freight train -- killing at least 23 and critically injuring dozens more -- ignored a red light telling him to stop.

Had the engineer obeyed the signal, the accident would not have occurred, Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said.

"We want to be honest in our appraisal," she said at the scene of the crash, as rescue workers, now in recovery mode, continued to use heavy machinery to untangle the twisted remains of the most damaged passenger car.

"Barring any information from the NTSB, we believe our engineer failed to stop and that was the cause of the accident," she said, referring to the National Transportation Safety Board. "Of course, it is your worst fear that this could happen, that the ability for human error to occur could come into the scenario."

She said the engineer, whom she did not identify, was a subcontractor with Veolia Transportation and a former Amtrak employee. Tyrrell said she believed that he had been killed in the crash but that she could not confirm the death. She said she did not know why a series of safety measures and controls along the way, including communication with dispatchers, failed.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said shortly after 12:30 p.m. that the death told had reached 23 and was likely to rise. The number probably included the two or three bodies Ed Winter, assistant chief of the Los Angeles County coroner's office, described earlier as being visible in the wreckage of the most seriously damaged passenger car.

full article: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-traincrash14-2008sep14,0,3660884.story

[ProjectMaximus]

25 and counting...this is horrendous.

I feel terrible for the hundreds of families involved.

[thelakelander]

The engineer may have missed the signal because he may have been text messaging....

Engineer Apparently Sent Text Message Before Crash

Denise Tyrell, a spokesperson for Metrolink commented on the report that Sanchez might have been texting immediately before the crash.

She said, "I can't believe someone could be texting while driving a train."

full article: http://cbs2.com/local/Metrolink.Engineer.Robert.2.817045.html

[Ocklawaha]

TELESCOPING? God, say it isn't so. Telescoping during a train wreck is a rare and nearly extinct type of accident on the railroads. During the age of wooden passenger cars it was common for the stronger car to pass right through the weaker, sweeping everything in the path to its death. Wooden cars were made illegal for "interchange" and soon vanished. But looking at the image of that cab-car, laying on its side in Chatsworth, it seems to have all the tale-tale scars of a telescoping accident. Even the "can of kipper" way the sides are peeled back, looking for all the world like a cartoon telescope. Questions - questions and more questions...



Didn't the Chatsworth block have ATC (automatic train control) that would have set the brakes as the engineer ran through the red signal?

Why are these cars not running with functional anti-climbers? If they have them why didn't they work? (Anti-climbers common on streetcar or LRT's, are simply a plate of horizontal metal ridges. When two cars come together so hard the couplers shatter like glass, the anti-climbers smack together and interlock, like fingers on a pair of romantic entwined hands.

Where were the people killed? upstairs? downstairs? vestibule? standees or seated?

What part of the carbody failed?

Speeds, track speed, train speed.

This could have a HUGE effect on us as we approach Commuter Rail Jacksonville.


OCKLAWAHA

[BridgeTroll]

The engineer may have missed the signal because he may have been text messaging....

Engineer Apparently Sent Text Message Before Crash

Denise Tyrell, a spokesperson for Metrolink commented on the report that Sanchez might have been texting immediately before the crash.

She said, "I can't believe someone could be texting while driving a train."

full article: http://cbs2.com/local/Metrolink.Engineer.Robert.2.817045.html

Texting... or using the phone... while driving... is dangerous.  STOP IT!

[Lunican]

Witnesses say light was green just before Metrolink train crashed
The Los Angeles Times
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Rich Connell and Robert J. Lopez
October 4, 2008

Three observers who say they were at the Chatsworth Metrolink station before last month's deadly train crash have asserted in interviews that a final, crucial railroad signal was green as the commuter line's engineer headed toward the collision point.

The accounts, including one from a station security guard and another from a retiree who says he was interviewed by a federal investigator, contradict a key preliminary finding by the National Transportation Safety Board.

On the day of the crash, he said, he was at the station when the Metrolink train pulled in, and after chatting with Sanchez about the Dodgers, he watched the train pull out. Because he'd been expecting to see a freight train coming from the north, he said, he looked up the tracks at the signal and saw that it was green.

"It's a habit," he said as he sat on a station bench this week. "We're always curious about the freight train that comes through here." Atkinson said he turned to Cassel and remarked, "I see a green light already. I guess he'll [Sanchez] get through the tunnel first," a reference to the single track passing through the mountains.

Full Article: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-traincrash4-2008oct04,0,1252160.story

[Lunican]

National Framework Established for Positive Train Control Implementation
PR Newswire
October 9, 2008

The four major Class I freight railroads confirmed their agreement today to establish interoperability standards for Positive Train Control (PTC).

CSX is pleased to officially join with the other major U.S. railroads in establishing a national framework for consistent PTC technology and communication infrastructure across their respective networks.

"We are very pleased to achieve this milestone in our joint work on this innovative and important safety enhancement," said Tony L. Ingram, CSXT's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. "This helps assure the U.S. freight rail industry's continued global leadership in safe and secure transportation."

CSX Corporation (NYSE: CSX), based in Jacksonville, Fla., is a leading transportation company providing rail, intermodal and rail-to-truck transload services. The company's transportation network spans approximately 21,000 miles with service to 23 eastern states and the District of Columbia, and connects to more than 70 ocean, river and lake ports.