When I finally shut the TV off at 11pm last night LA Fire crews were still trying to recover bodies from the wreck that occurred at 4:23 pm. The death toll now stands at 18:
LOS ANGELES — Emergency crews found more victims early Saturday, boosting the death toll to 17 (now updated to 18), as they delicately picked apart the mangled wreckage of a commuter train that collided head-on with a freight train on the same track.I've spent a lot of time on trains this year and I know a little bit about the control systems they use. Trains are controlled by a combination of radio commands from dispatchers, who act like the rail version of air traffic controllers, and block signals which tell the engineers whether it's safe to proceed or whether they are expected to stop. So what are the possible causes?
More victims were feared trapped in the wrecked Metrolink commuter train. About 135 people were injured.
The impact 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 so much damage, we need to wait for heavier equipment," Ruda said early Saturday.
Officials say there were 222 people on the Metrolink train and four Union Pacific employees aboard the freight train.
The cause of the collision had not been determined.
- An error by the dispatcher allowed both trains onto the single track section.
- A failure in the block signals which did not display a red signal when it should have.
- A failure by track switching equipment which routed a train onto the wrong track.
- A failure by one of the engineers to obey a block signal or dispatcher command.
The accident occurred just past a point where the double-track section becomes single-tracked. If I had to guess what went wrong, I would have to say that the Metrolink train was supposed to have held short of the single track until the freight train passed and then would have been cleared to head up the long single track section that runs through two tunnels as the trains move through the Santa Susana pass.
My hat's off to the agencies that responded - LA Fire, LAPD, LA Sheriff's, CHP, plus the hospitals and other city services. It looks like the mass casualty drills they run periodically really paid off yesterday. LA Fire was even running a new helicopter than hadn't been officially put into service yesterday as part of the air force used to transfer critical patients to every trauma center in the county. The emergency response part of the equation worked very well.
There was a particularly moving moment late in the evening as the body of an off-duty female LAPD officer was removed from the crushed car. Rescue workers from the various agencies lined the road as firefighters carried the body down from the train. She was then handed off to an honor guard of LAPD officers who conducted a brief service before carrying her through the phalanx of saluting firemen, police officers, sheriff's deputies, and city leaders to a waiting ambulance.
Unfortunately, I'm sure more bodies will be found once they finally pull the front car completely apart. It is now the worst accident in Metrolink history.
UPDATE: This statement from a retired Amtrak engineer would tend to confirm my suspicion about what happened:
Tom Dinger, a retired Amtrak engineer, said the common practice is for northbound passenger trains to effectively pull over onto a side track at the Chatsworth station until southbound freight trains have passed. Between Chatsworth and Simi Valley there is only one set of tracks because of narrow tunnels that trains use to go beneath the Santa Susanna Pass.
"We were always stopped at Chatsworth to wait for the heavy UP [Union Pacific Railroad] trains to get off the hill," said Dinger, 64, of Silver Lake. "The UP train was almost at the siding -- it was less than a mile away. It's a shame."
Dinger said locomotive operators go no faster than 40 mph around the curve where Friday's crash took place. He speculated that the freight train was going no faster than 25 or 30 mph.
Dinger said the Metrolink engineer should have seen a trackside signal that would have warned him that a freight train was approaching. But because of the late-afternoon time of the crash, the engineer might not have seen that signal light because of the sun, Dinger said.
"I hope and pray he didn't overlook the signal," he said.
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