A badly injured passenger and relatives of people killed in the Jan. 26 Metrolink crash near Glendale called Wednesday on state legislators to prohibit commuter railroads from having locomotives push trains from the rear, a practice that some experts say might have increased the severity of the crash.
The group disputed the findings of a recent federal study showing only a slight difference in safety between pushing and pulling trains with engines.
"My father used to say that push operations were dangerous, that they were an accident waiting to happen. What would you rather be sitting in?" said Kerri Ormiston Davis, the daughter of Tom Ormiston, a veteran Metrolink conductor who was killed in the crash triggered when a motorist left his sport utility vehicle on the tracks.
Davis testified before a special rail safety committee formed by Assembly Majority Leader Dario Frommer (D-Glendale) in the aftermath of the Glendale-area crash, which killed 11 people and injured 180. Davis was joined by Lien Wiley, the widow of passenger Don Wiley; Elaine Parent Siebers who lost her brother William Parent in the crash; and Steven Toby, whose left leg was severely injured. All have sued Metrolink.
Frommer said he formed the committee to investigate the January crash, push-pull operations, the shortage of government funds for railroad crossing improvements and the safety of rail operations statewide.
"California has one of the nation's worst records for rail safety," Frommer said, adding that the January crash "created new questions about push-pull modes of operation."
In push mode, a train's engine is behind the last passenger car and is controlled from a cab car, a passenger coach at the front with an engineer's station. The cab car's weight is less than half that of a locomotive. The practice, common in commuter trains, has come under intense scrutiny since the January crash.
That morning a man allegedly drove his sport utility vehicle onto the tracks and doused it with gasoline in what he said was an aborted suicide attempt. A Metrolink train with a cab car in front struck the vehicle and derailed. The jackknifing train cars hit a parked freight locomotive and another Metrolink train.
In May the vehicle driver, Juan Manuel Alvarez, 26, of Compton, who was not injured in the crash, was ordered to stand trial on murder charges.
