Railroad Accidents

In a sting aimed at curbing accidents along the Blue Line, police and sheriff's deputies staked out a two-mile stretch of the line's tracks in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday and ticketed nearly 300 jaywalkers and drivers they caught using cellphones and making illegal left turns. Transportation officials said the crackdown was the latest effort in a push to improve safety along the Blue Line, the city's oldest and most popular light rail line but also its most dangerous. Ninety-nine people have died in accidents and suicides involving the line in the nearly 20 years since the service from Los Angeles to Long Beach began.

A Union Pacific maintenance worker who was killed in a collision with a Metrolink train has been identified as Roberto Ramirez, 56, of Visalia. Ramirez died of multiple traumatic injuries when the pickup truck he had been driving was struck by a Metrolink commuter train east of El Monte on March 20, said Lt. Brian Elias of the Los Angeles County coroner's office. The coroner's office considers the death an accident. Metrolink officials had earlier said there was no evidence that the employee deliberately placed himself in the train's path.

A 43-year-old man died Monday night in Simi Valley after he was struck by a shopping cart being dragged by a freight train, police said Tuesday. Alan Pichel Sr. of Simi Valley was dragged for about a mile by the train, authorities said. Pichel was standing next to the tracks with several people, including his 17-year-old son, when the train came through a crossing at Los Angeles Avenue just west of Sequoia Avenue about 6:30 p.m.

In a sting aimed at curbing accidents along the Blue Line, police and sheriff's deputies staked out a two-mile stretch of the line's tracks in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday and ticketed nearly 300 jaywalkers and drivers they caught using cellphones and making illegal left turns. Transportation officials said the crackdown was the latest effort in a push to improve safety along the Blue Line, the city's oldest and most popular light rail line but also its most dangerous. Ninety-nine people have died in accidents and suicides involving the line in the nearly 20 years since the service from Los Angeles to Long Beach began.

A rash of railroad accidents last month should show Congress that serious problems remain in the industry since the worst wreck in Amtrak history 14 months ago, Federal Railroad Administrator John Riley said. Equally troubling, he said, is that the federal government has less power to curtail railroad accidents now than it did when three Conrail locomotives slid through a warning signal and collided with an Amtrak passenger train near Chase, Md., in January, 1987. Sixteen people were killed.

Human and mechanical errors led to a New York City accident March 10 in which a runaway train locomotive smashed into five vehicles, injuring four people, federal investigators said. A rail crew violated Long Island Rail Road procedures by not setting a hand brake or blocking the 150-ton locomotive's wheels while they went to work on another train, the National Transportation Safety Board said. A mechanical brake that the crew set was leaking air and failed, investigators said.

As federal authorities prepare to close out a 16-month investigation of the deadly Chatsworth Metrolink disaster, a key issue remains in dispute: What color was the fateful final signal? The only eyewitnesses to come forward publicly have maintained that the light was green as Metrolink 111 barreled toward a head-on crash with a Union Pacific freight train. And the conductor of the train told investigators that he radioed the Metrolink engineer before leaving Chatsworth station that the signal was green and the train was clear to proceed, records show.

A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the Mojave Desert northwest of Twentynine Palms early Saturday, knocking an Amtrak passenger train off its tracks and damaging two highway bridges, but otherwise causing remarkably little harm and no deaths. Four people on Amtrak's Southwest Chief from Chicago to Los Angeles were injured, none seriously, when the temblor--the fourth strongest in Southern California this century--rocked the region at 2:46 a.m.

Los Angeles' Metro Blue Line trains had more accidents involving pedestrians last year than any other light rail system in the state, the Public Utilities Commission reported Thursday.

The man who conducted drug tests on railroad and airline employees involved in accidents nationwide pleaded guilty today to three counts of providing false test results to federal officials. Dr. Delbert Lacefield appeared before U.S. District Judge Lee West to plead guilty to three counts that carry a total maximum punishment of 15 years in prison and $30,000 in fines, U.S. Atty. Bill Price said. Lacefield was released on a $5,000 recognizance bond. A sentencing date has not been set.

As federal authorities prepare to close out a 16-month investigation of the deadly Chatsworth Metrolink disaster, a key issue remains in dispute: What color was the fateful final signal? The only eyewitnesses to come forward publicly have maintained that the light was green as Metrolink 111 barreled toward a head-on crash with a Union Pacific freight train. And the conductor of the train told investigators that he radioed the Metrolink engineer before leaving Chatsworth station that the signal was green and the train was clear to proceed, records show.

A Toyota Camry that had pulled over for a police car with its siren blaring was rear-ended by a Nissan pickup Wednesday morning in the San Fernando Valley, with the impact sending the truck careening onto nearby railroad tracks, where it was struck by a Metrolink commuter train, authorities said. A 38-year-old Sun Valley man driving the pickup and a child younger than 2 in the Toyota were critically injured. The child had been strapped into a car seat in the back, authorities said.

They'd been a father and son estranged -- going long periods barely speaking -- but who in recent months had begun the path to reconciliation on late-night walks to a nearby Fullerton train yard. Late Wednesday, however, Virgil Lamphier, 56, and his son, David, 23, were struck and killed by a Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train as the pair walked the tracks about 11:15 p.m. What the two were doing on the tracks is still unclear. Authorities initially speculated that they had been train-spotting.

After years of legal wrangling, Metrolink has spent $30 million to settle most of the lawsuits arising from the 2005 Glendale train crash that killed 11 and injured about 180, plaintiffs' attorneys said Wednesday. Among those settlements are two injury cases, one for $5 million and the other for $3.8 million, and two wrongful death cases in which the heirs will receive $3.5 million for each claim, plaintiffs' attorney Jerome Ringler said. One of those cases involves payments to the family of James Tutino, a sheriff's deputy killed in the crash.

At the base of a rocky hill within earshot of passing trains, they came to remember the fashion student, the music store owner, the police officer -- the 25 people in all who died a year ago Saturday in the devastating Chatsworth train crash. Ray Villalobos and 20 others huddled in pink shirts imprinted with bright pink lips to honor his 18-year-old fashion-student sister, Maria Elena Villalobos. Kim Brower, now a 46-year-old widow, wore a smile and remained upbeat in memory of her husband of 23 years, music store owner Dean Brower, 51. And Sha Moran, the mother of Spree DeSha, a 35-year-old Los Angeles police officer who died in the crash, sobbed quietly on her husband's shoulder.

Today's anniversary of the Chatsworth Metrolink disaster will yank again at the emotional tear in the tightly woven fabric of the Hefter family. Bright, full of potential and the baby of the house, Jacob Hefter was barely 18 -- and one of the youngest to die that Friday afternoon. Since those frantic first hours after the crash, Alan and Angela Hefter and their two surviving sons have struggled to adapt to life with a vital missing part. "The family you had prior to Sept.

New federal research shows that computer modeling can reliably predict when members of freight train crews have an increased risk of accident due to fatigue -- a finding that might help solve one of the most persistent safety problems in the railroad industry.

Southern Pacific Transportation Co. officials, quoting results of a preliminary investigation, Monday blamed company workers for failing to properly couple 14 freight cars that rolled from a City of Industry switching yard and smashed into three locomotives stopped eight miles away in Pico Rivera.

Officials unveiled a commemorative plaque Tuesday in downtown Los Angeles dedicated to those who lost their lives in Metrolink train accidents. Metrolink Board Chairman Keith Millhouse said the plaque also honors those affected by train fatalities, including friends, loved ones and first responders. A large group of law enforcement and Metrolink officials, along with Red Cross workers and commuters, gathered in the east portal of Union Station as Millhouse removed a black cloth to reveal the large bronze plaque depicting a track nearing a tree-lined bend.

As the anniversary of the Sept. 12 Chatsworth train disaster approaches, officials with Southern California's sprawling commuter rail service are facing a vexing array of technical, financial and potential legal challenges as they struggle to deliver on pledges of trailblazing safety reforms. A burst of energy to remake the region's Metrolink train operation was unleashed by the deadliest rail collision in modern California history, a watershed event that killed 25, injured 130 and prompted landmark federal mandates to modernize the nation's rail safety systems.