Santa Fe Railway

Efforts to expand commuter train service between Los Angeles and Orange counties and extend it into San Bernardino and Riverside counties are stalled because government officials and the Santa Fe railroad cannot agree on the value of 242 miles of track, both sides said Friday. Officials from Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties Friday accused Santa Fe of attempting a "train robbery in reverse" by demanding $1.

Efforts to expand commuter train service between Los Angeles and Orange counties and extend it into San Bernardino and Riverside are stalled because government officials and the Santa Fe railroad cannot agree on the value of 242 miles of track, both sides said Friday. Officials from Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties Friday accused Santa Fe of attempting a "train robbery in reverse" by demanding $1.

The California Department of Transportation has recommended that $8.8 million be earmarked for a proposed commuter train from Riverside to Orange County that could relieve severe Riverside Freeway congestion. Transportation officials said the state money would enable such a line to operate by 1993--about two years sooner than anticipated--and provide relief while car-pool and toll lanes are built on the highway.

Santa Fe Railway has announced that it is recalling 96 employees at its rail car repair shops in Topeka and 67 employees at its locomotive repair shops in San Bernardino, effective Jan. 2. Bob Gehrt, a Santa Fe spokesman in Chicago, said the workers are being recalled in Topeka to restart the company's heavy car repair program, mainly repairing jumbo covered hopper cars used to transport grain. He said those workers were furloughed last April.

Santa Fe Railway will sell 730 miles of track in the Southwest to privately held Orient Railcorp. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The three segments of track are in Oklahoma and Texas.

The Santa Fe Railway on Wednesday won the right to operate freight trains on all its lines, from Chicago to Los Angeles, with as few as two crew members, instead of the four previously required under union agreements. But union workers in Santa Fe's eastern region will get from $5,000 to $75,000 apiece for agreeing to the crew-size reduction.

Three of the four Santa Fe railway workers killed in a crash here, including a woman brake operator working her first shift ever, burned to death after jumping from their locomotive just before it rammed an oncoming freight train, officials said Thursday. "The indications to me are that they had gotten out and then the explosion occurred," said Deputy Riverside County Coroner Alan Wesefeldt.

Three of the four Santa Fe railway workers killed in a crash here, including a woman brake operator working her first shift ever, burned to death after jumping from their locomotive just before it rammed an oncoming freight train, officials said Thursday. "The indications to me are that they had gotten out and then the explosion occurred," said Deputy Riverside County Coroner Alan Wesefeldt.

The derailment of a Los Angeles-bound freight train that crashed into a Mt. Washington apartment building may have been caused by faulty wheels on a boxcar, state officials said Tuesday. Investigators determined that the derailment occurred when a section of track bent under the weight of a passing freight car, said Ed Damrom of the Public Utilities Commission's Railroad Operations and Safety Section.