The commuter rail service known as Metrolink -- Southern California's only true regional mass transit carrier -- gets little money and even less political respect.
It is guided by a board weighted with officials from small cities across five counties, which chip in to cover Metrolink's expenses and connect their local transit networks.
Unlike the larger Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which has billions of dollars to run light rail lines, subways and buses across Los Angeles County, Metrolink operates on a relative shoestring.
The agency has about 200 employees -- the MTA has more than 9,000 -- but hundreds more work for subcontractors. To save money, Metrolink contracts for items as varied as uniforms and internal audits as well as its train engineer and maintenance staffs.
The 11-member board must manage it all while juggling the added complexity of operating in "a mixed environment," in the words of Robert Huddy, who oversaw transportation issues for the Southern California Assn. of Governments and is himself a former locomotive engineer: More than half of Metrolink's system is single-track, which means it must be shared with freight trains.
Even some board members, who receive $100 for each meeting they attend, concede that they lack expertise on some of the problems the system faces. "It looks like we didn't have as much knowledge as we should have had," said Ron Roberts, chairman of the Metrolink board and a Temecula city councilman. "I know I didn't."
After the Sept. 12 crash in Chatsworth, in which a Metrolink train collided with a freight train, killing at least 25 people, Roberts said he asked Metrolink's staff if an automated system was available to stop trains in an emergency. He was told such systems were only in the testing stages, although some experts say devices exist that could be used now to make the tracks here safer.
He also "asked them a question about what type of system is in the cab if the engineer becomes unconscious or not able to run the train anymore. I asked that yesterday," he said Friday. "They still haven't sent an answer back to me."
Nick Patsaouras, who played a major role in developing the regional system while on the board of the now-defunct Southern California Rapid Transit District, says Metrolink has grown at the edges of the political establishment and escaped the kind of scrutiny focused on other public agencies.
