Federal officials investigating Friday's fatal Metrolink train crash focused Sunday on whether a signal that should have alerted the engineer to stop the train was working properly, and whether it went unheeded.
National Transportation Safety Board member Kitty Higgins said a computer reading indicated the last signal before the collision site was displaying a red light. But she said investigators wanted to make sure it wasn't a false reading.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday, September 27, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 67 words Type of Material: Correction
Radio report: An article in Section A on Sept. 14 about the Metrolink commuter rail crash in Chatsworth credited KCBS-AM (740) with a report that teenagers had sent text messages to the train's engineer. The information was actually reported by CBS radio and television affiliates in Los Angeles. KCBS-AM is a Bay Area affiliate. The error was repeated in an article in Section A on Sept. 15.
Higgins criticized Metrolink for saying Saturday that an engineer had been at fault for failing to heed the red signal, causing the crash with a Union Pacific freight train that so far has claimed 25 lives and left 135 injured, 40 critically.
"I don't know on what basis Metrolink made that statement. We really work very hard not to jump to conclusions," Higgins said at a Sunday news conference in Woodland Hills.
The conflict between the agencies surfaced as authorities pulled apart the wreckage in an attempt to clear the tracks in Chatsworth and restore service by this evening, and hundreds of grieving friends and relatives of the dead gathered to pray in Simi Valley, the train's destination.
The train passed four signals between De Soto Avenue and Nashville Street that, if working correctly, would have flashed yellow or red to warn the engineer to slow and stop.
The engineer, stationed at the front of the train, and conductor, stationed at the back, customarily call each other to repeat signals seen by the engineer, Higgins said. Officials have listened to recordings and found no indication that the engineer and conductor exchanged information on the last two signals, one of which should have been flashing yellow and the other red. The investigators were unsure whether "dead zones" might have interfered with such communication.
Higgins also disclosed that the Metrolink train "blew through" a switch controlling a junction with a railroad siding closest to the accident site. A data recorder said the Metrolink train was traveling at 42 mph when it passed the switch.
NTSB officials have interviewed a Metrolink dispatcher based in Pomona who said he had set up the signals and the switch so that the Union Pacific freighter and the Metrolink train could pass without incident. But Higgins disputed a Metrolink assertion that the dispatcher had tried to contact the train about a potential collision course, a message that allegedly arrived too late.
