Bad Day For Metrolink

As I write this the Orange County Fire Department is looking for a possible victim of a collision with a Metrolink train at Red Hill and Edinger on the border of Tustin and Santa Ana.  Human remains have been found on the front of the train but the rest of the body hasn't been found.  The engineer knows he hit someone at high speed.  All trains on the main north/south line between L.A and San Diego have been stopped through central Orange County.

Because of darkness and the terrain around the tracks the fire department is using their thermal imaging equipment to try and locate still-warm body parts, and a helicopter has been ordered to light up the area.  It's gonna be pretty gruesome.

UPDATE:  It appears to be another suicide-by-train.  ID'd as Ronald Perry, 59.

But that's not the only accident involving Metrolink today:

A horse and its rider were killed Friday after being struck by a Metrolink commuter train north of Burbank, authorities said.

The rider, an unidentified, 36-year-old man, and his horse were hit about 3 p.m. in the 9300 block of North San Fernando Road, said Capt. Jamie Moore of the Los Angeles Fire Department. Both died at the scene, Moore said.

The circumstances surrounding the accident were not immediately clear, Moore said. No one on the train was injured.

[Updated at 4:48 p.m.: The circumstances of the collision, including whether it might have been a suicide, remain under investigation, said Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Erik Scott.

There have been a lot of these lately, and I don't think any of them have been the fault of the railroad.  Just three days ago a girl was killed by another Metrolink train in Riverside.  And last September two people were killed almost within sight of my house when they inexplicably decided to sleep on the tracks in Mission Viejo.