After deadly Metrolink crash, somber commuters board trains again
L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa joins riders this morning in Chatsworth. Also, Metrolink's spokeswoman resigns after she is criticized for saying the crash was caused by an engineer's mistake.
Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times
Commuters returned to Southern California's rails today, the first workday after a deadly train collision in Chatsworth, as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Metrolink officials tried to assure people that riding the train is still safer than navigating local freeways.
The assurances came on the same day that Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell resigned after Metrolink board members told The Times that she spoke prematurely in saying Friday's crash that killed 25 people was caused by an engineer's mistake.
Tyrrell said she had spoken with Metrolink's chief executive and was authorized to release the basic facts of the investigation before announcing Saturday that the Metrolink driver ran a red light on the rail line shared by Union Pacific freighters.
She said today that she was upset by the statement that Metrolink board Chairman Ron Roberts made to The Times on Sunday -- that her statement Saturday was premature--and that he made to the Wall Street Journal that she was not authorized to make a statement blaming the engineer.
"I felt the damage to my reputation is so great, I could not work for these people anymore," she said. "If I am not mistaken, the engineer blew through a light. The media got on top of this story, apparently so unaccustomed to a public agency telling the truth, they started to spin it that we were trying to throw all the blame on the engineer.
"Metrolink is responsible for the engineer, they are responsible for overseeing the contractor. Talking about the human error aspect of this is not a way to shift blame from Metrolink. Metrolink is still the responsible party to oversee the contract with the engineer and the conductors."
She said Metrolink's chief executive, David Solow, gave her the authority to make statements to the media Saturday about the cause of the crash.
"He told me to go ahead. . . . I felt that when my reputation was called into question in the national media by Ron Roberts that there was no going back as far as I was concerned," she said. "I believe that David Solow's decision to allow us to go public without waiting for the NTSB to point the finger was a brave and honorable thing to do. We have a basic difference here that can't be resolved. I see no way I can represent them and maintain my own standards. They are free to conduct their own business as they see fit."
