Trains Collide Outside Los Angeles
Friday, September 12, 2008
On September 12, 2008, the mayor of Los Angeles announced that a passenger train collided head-on with a freight train just outside Los Angeles, California. "The latest figures that we have is, there's somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 fatalities," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told reporters. "That's probably the most serious train wreck to occur here in a very long time."
Those confirmed dead include a Los Angeles police officer who happened to be riding Ventura County Line passenger train 111 when it smashed head-on into a Union Pacific freight train shortly before 4:30 p.m. Pacific Time.
The death toll is expected to rise by the time emergency workers finish sifting through the mangled debris near the town of Chatsworth northwest of Los Angeles.
"It's terrible," Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman Karen Smith said of the crash. "They are still working away."
More than 70 people were injured in the crash, according to the Metrolink, which operates the commuter rail service.
While there was no immediate evidence of intentional wrongdoing, the crash site is being treated as a crime scene "just to be on the safe side until we figure this out," Smith said.
The collision near the town of Chatsworth northwest of Los Angeles caused a fire and at least one car of the commuter train and seven cars from the freight train to derail.
The accident occured at about 2323 GMT on a curvy section of track some 31 miles of Los Angeles.
The derailed passenger train car lay ripped open and on its side, with firefighters attempting to put out the flames and rescue crews working at the scene, according to live images aired on local broadcaster ABC7.
"Clearly something went wrong," Metrolink's Denise Tyrrell told ABC7. "There was a failure somewhere along the line."
"There are many failsafes, but we're still dealing with human beings and mechanical devices, so after we have ascertained that our passengers are off that train and everyone is in good condition, then we'll start investigating the actual crash itself."
Tyrell told ABC7 that a locomotive was pulling the Metrolink train, and the force of the crash may have pushed the locomotive into the first passenger car.
It was not immediately clear how many people were aboard the Metrolink train, although typically as many as 400 people ride the line involved in the crash.
The number 111 commuter departed Los Angeles headed for Moorpark, a bedroom community 47 miles northwest of California's largest city.
LA Fire Department captain Armando Hogan said some 100 fire personnel responded to the accident. Many of the injuries were "mostly from people being kind of jolted around," he said.
On January 26, 2005, a Metrolink train hit a Jeep that had been parked on the train tracks in Atwater Village. The train bound for Los Angeles derailed and struck two other trains, killing 11 people.
Posted in Accidents & Personal Injury • Railroad Accidents