Metrolink Collision in Chatsworth

UPDATE: Death toll now at 24 - Metrolink now says their engineer ignored a red stop signal and caused the collision.

UPDATE 2: Toll rises to 25 - Engineer may have been texting right before the collision.

A Metrolink commuter train has collided with a Union Pacific freight train in the Chatsworth area resulting in overturned train cars and a fire. One Metrolink car is very badly torn up and couple of engines are overturned and burning.

This is a bad one.

The aerial shots are pretty ugly. One car appears to have been telescoped into the locomotive with significant damage (that's what's left of the locomotive and first car in the photo at left). Anyone sitting in the car directly behind the locomotive got the worst of it. The following cars are still upright, though the people certainly were tossed around. There will be a lot of critical injuries and I've got to believe there will be fatalities.

It was identified as Metrolink 111 which left Los Angeles northbound at 3:35 pm. Metrolink trains have been running at record ridership levels lately due to high gas prices.

The area where the crash occurred is fairly rural, and a spot where the trains wind through the hills on the way up to Moorpark. We traveled that route not too long ago on Amtrak

This is a shot of a typical Metrolink locomotive and car combination that they run throughout Southern California. In the crash the locomotive was pushed halfway back through the first car, completely crushing the mid-deck seating area in the front of the car. The middle 2/3rd or so of these cars are double-decked.



The worst Metrolink disaster in history was just in the court system:

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.

I'm afraid this one may exceed the previous high death toll.

UPDATE: 2 dead, 20 critical so far, but those numbers will rise.

UPDATE 2: A witness on scene says he can confirm 7 dead so far. And I can confirm that Paul Moyer on Channel 4 is a complete moron. I had to change channels because his commentary was so bad.

UPDATE3: The firemen who are swarming over the crushed car (there must be 50 of them) are handing sheets to other firefighters in the train. That's not a good sign. They just showed a dead body being lifted by crane out of the wreckage. There's blood on the ground where the body had been placed. It's a terrible scene. The TV crews have got to be careful about what's going out over the air.

UPDATE 4: They just showed a part of the triage area where there were at least 6 bodies under covers, including one that could have been a child.

UPDATE 5: Hearing reports of a second Metrolink accident in Corona. A car was hit trying to cross the tracks, killing the driver and injuring a train passenger.

UPDATE 6: Three hours after the accident and the firemen are still trying to get people out of the first car. I'm not sure they'll be able to get everyone out of there until they pull the locomotive out of the wreck.
UPDATE 7: L.A. Mayor reporting 10-15 fatalities.

Survivor stories.

UPDATE 8: 9pm and the rescuers have been pulled off of the wrecked car while they bring in heavy equipment. The fact that no firemen are still working on that car tells me that anyone left inside is no longer living. The first 20-25 feet of that car were compressed into a very small area - nobody up there would have had a chance.