Railroad Accidents

Federal investigators said Wednesday that records from Metrolink engineer Robert M. Sanchez's cellphone show that he sent and received text messages while on duty Friday, the day he was involved in a catastrophic train collision in Chatsworth. However, investigators have not yet analyzed the records to determine whether Sanchez was using his phone at the time his train slammed into an oncoming Union Pacific freight train in an accident that left 25 people dead and 135 others injured.

Chen-Wyuan Kari Hsieh didn't want to trouble her father to drive her from the family's Newhall home to their restaurant in Simi Valley, her sister said. So she figured out how to get there on the train and climbed aboard Friday. Hsieh, 18, was among the victims of last week's deadly Metrolink crash. "I think she was a really lovely sister and a really lovely daughter," said Sophia Hsieh, 20. "There's a lot about my sister that no words can describe."

Beverly Mosely left a bad marriage in Florida, boarding a Greyhound bus to California with her two daughters and a single suitcase, hoping for a fresh start. In the 24 years that followed, it seemed to her loved ones that she had created a good life for herself. Mosely, 57, worked her way up from a vocational nurse who worked nights to become the ombudsman at Kaiser Permanente Panorama City Medical Center.

As a bugler played taps outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on Thursday, LAPD Officer Laura Gerritsen stood up and saluted the flag-draped casket of her life partner, Officer Spree DeSha. Gerritsen was in uniform, and the action seemed fitting to honor a woman who was remembered in a nearly three-hour funeral ceremony as a model police officer. DeSha, 35, a seven-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, was among 25 people killed and 135 injured Sept.

For more than 13 hours, Pastor Tony Amatangelo had prayed and watched over his friend and fellow minister as he lay in a county hospital after being pulled from the wreckage of Metrolink 111. Paul Long died, and four hours later, physically and emotionally spent, Amatangelo returned to his Moorpark home. Sunday service was coming. What would he say? The pastor felt chances were slim that the sermon he had written for the service would be relevant after the crash. Then he remembered.

Engineer Robert M. Sanchez pulled Metrolink 111 out of the Chatsworth station and was rolling north at 54 mph. About a mile later, he entered a restricted speed zone and throttled down to 42 mph. Just ahead, on his right side, was a red light. It was a warning to stop so that an oncoming Union Pacific freight train could move off the main track and onto a siding.

Coasting out of Chatsworth at 4:22 p.m., Doyle Souser had caught an early train home from work to cook his family a nice tri-tip for dinner. Charles Peck had just wrapped up an interview for a job he hoped would land him in Southern California so he could marry his fiancee. Aida Magdaleno, a farmworker's daughter studying at Cal State Northridge, was on her way home to attend her nephew's baptism. They didn't know one another.

In the 10 days since one of the worst commuter rail accidents in California history, the region's trauma surgeons have reknit shattered limbs, repaired battered organs and returned dozens of patients to homes and families, where many will now face weeks or months of painful recuperation. Twenty patients remain in the region's hospitals as a result of the Sept. 12 head-on collision between a Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train in Chatsworth.

Spurred by the deadly head-on crash of two trains in Chatsworth, congressional negotiators agreed Tuesday to a groundbreaking rail safety reform bill requiring many passenger and freight trains to be equipped with technology that can automatically prevent collisions. The measure had stalled before Sept. 12, when a Metrolink commuter train crashed into a Union Pacific freight train, killing 25 people and injuring 135.

Metrolink should add a second engineer to its locomotives, install anti-collision technology and place an additional video camera in the cab of its engines to monitor train drivers, according to a motion supported by several Los Angeles city and county officials. The improvements, however, are not being sought by Metrolink.