A man apparently intending to commit suicide parked his SUV in the path of a Metrolink commuter train Wednesday morning, then jumped out of the way in time to watch a chain-reaction wreck that killed at least 11 people and injured about 180.
The crash, which involved three trains, was the deadliest on a railroad in the United States since 1999. It shattered the predawn stillness near Griffith Park with what witnesses described as the sound of scraping gravel followed by a sustained boom that shook the ground.
"Before I knew it, there was a big, big bang. I looked out the window and saw fire," said Teresa Alderete, 50, of Reseda, a commuter whose train car was transformed in an instant from a rolling island of morning serenity into a nightmare of flying bodies, torn metal and shattered glass.
"I was one of the fortunate ones to walk out."
Officials said the carnage was caused by a despondent man from Compton, Juan Manuel Alvarez, 25, who parked his green Jeep Grand Cherokee on the tracks that run along the border of Glendale and the Los Angeles neighborhood of Atwater Village. As Metrolink's regular commuter train No. 100 from Moorpark to Union Station bore down on him just after 6 a.m., Alvarez leaped from the vehicle, Glendale Police Chief Randy Adams said. He was arrested at the scene and, after being taken to County-USC Medical Center, was booked on suspicion of murder. Prosecutors are weighing formal charges.
The lead passenger car of a three-car southbound train, which was being pushed from the rear by its locomotive, hit the truck, dragged it down the tracks, then derailed.
As the Metrolink train veered off the tracks, it crashed into an idle Union Pacific freight train that was on an adjacent siding. The impact caused the passenger train to jackknife. Its protruding end smashed into a three-car northbound Metrolink train as it passed on its way from Union Station to Burbank.
The rear two cars of the northbound No. 901 train -- which was being pulled by its locomotive -- also derailed.
"It was almost like a perfect storm of an accident," said Mary Travis, who oversees rail programs, including Metrolink, for the Ventura County Transportation Commission. "The timing of those three trains being at the same spot at the same time is just too horrible."
The crash renewed long-standing questions about rail safety in Southern California, where commuter lines share tracks with busy freight systems and intersect frequently with parts of the nation's most extensive urban road network.
