Metrolink chief says agency would consider installing safety systems

However, cautioning that there were potential obstacles to adding the equipment, he provided no assurance that the installation work would be done.

Speaking before the board of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority -- Metrolink's largest financial backer -- Solow also said he wasn't sure the Sept. 12 head-on collision between a Metrolink train and a Union Pacific freight train could have been avoided by the most readily-available device, known as automatic train stop.

Twenty-five people died and 135 were injured in the crash, which has brought action by state rail regulators and helped propel a groundbreaking national rail safety bill that moved toward Senate approval today.

Solow also indicated that Metrolink train engines already have an automatic train stop system installed, but that they have not been used because the trackside equipment that makes them work is in place only along a stretch of track in southern Orange County.

At best, Solow said the equipment, which he said dates to the 1940s, could slow trains or perhaps halt them when engineers do not stop at red signals. "In certain instances, [the train stop devices] would slow down the train, and that's better than not slowing down the train," he said.

In the two weeks since the accident, Solow has said little publicly, instead deferring comments to members of the Metrolink board. Of the five counties that fund Metrolink, the MTA provides the lion's share, and its board is chaired by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. In the wake of the crash, Villaraigosa and several other MTA board members have been publicly pushing Metrolink to expand the use of automatic breaking devices, putting two engineers in each locomotive and adding a video camera to locomotives to monitor the crews.

Villaraigosa questioned Solow on Thursday about anti-collision technology. Solow said that Metrolink operates in some of the most congested train corridors in the nation, and for that reason, the agency is hoping to one day equip its trains with a more advanced system that could stop any train traveling on any track in the region.