Train Wreck

Here's my Toyota sob story. Back in 2002, a number of Toyota and Lexus models developed a condition in which their oil congealed into sludge and ruined the engine. My Sienna minivan seemed to be one of them. Toyota was, shall we say, less than proactive. The company at first denied there was any sludge problem. Then it blamed the problem on the owners' failure to get the oil changed on schedule, as though owners of $30,000 Toyotas and Lexuses, among all U.S. motorists, were uniquely slipshod about their regular engine maintenance.

Drivers' education Re "Another massive Toyota recall," Jan. 22 Yet another Toyota recall. As confirmed "buy American" advocates, my husband and I have engaged in many an argument trying to convince friends that American cars are as good, if not better than, Japanese or German automobiles. We own four American-made cars, and there has not been one instance in which we have not arrived as safely or in as much comfort as those arriving in foreign cars. The lemmings to the slaughter who have flocked to foreign cars have not only been duped by the manufacturers, but must share responsibility for the country's current 10%-plus unemployment rate.

Ignoring the advice of this page, transit experts and both the current and former heads of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the MTA board in September awarded a $300-million contract to Italian company AnsaldoBreda to build 100 rail cars at a new factory it promised to construct near the Los Angeles River. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a strong backer of the contract, crowed afterward, "This means that L.A. is going to be the center of green jobs in the nation." Well, no, it isn't.

If you thought California's budget had problems already, just wait. A decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, along with rulings to come on more than a dozen lawsuits filed after the Legislature's highly creative budget-balancing act last summer, threaten to divert billions of dollars from vital state services. Wednesday's decision concerned a case that began even before the current budget crisis hit. In 2007, the Legislature raided $1.2 billion in state gasoline tax funds that were supposed to be dedicated to mass transit, and used the money instead to repay transportation loans and pay for other items normally covered by the general fund.

It was still dark when Dominga Cornejo parked herself outside her swap meet stand along South Spring Street, her ruffled pink apron tied around her waist and her giant bin of Mexican candy within arm's reach. At any moment, the 77-year-old expected a torrent of rain to drench her, a series of gun blasts to boom and a locomotive engine to come barreling down the street, possibly in her direction. "I'm ready for it," she said in Spanish. "I hope everyone sees my little store."

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.

It was long into the wee hours of Friday morning, and the state Senate was teetering near deadlock on bills to close a $26-billion budget deficit when lobbyists for the software company Intuit approached Senate leader Darrell Steinberg.

Three observers who say they were at the Chatsworth Metrolink station before last month's deadly train crash have asserted in interviews that a final, crucial railroad signal was green as the commuter line's engineer headed toward the collision point. The accounts, including one from a station security guard and another from a retiree who says he was interviewed by a federal investigator, contradict a key preliminary finding by the National Transportation Safety Board.

He limped away from the deadly 2005 train wreck in Glendale that killed 11 people. Then he survived Friday's even deadlier train wreck in Chatsworth. I'm standing over Richard Myles as he lies flat on his back at Kaiser Hospital on Sunset near Vermont, and I'm wondering if the ceiling will fall or the Big One will hit. Is he unbelievably lucky to have survived two horrible crashes? Or horribly unlucky to have been on those trains at all? It's too soon to know how to answer, the 58-year-old Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation manager told me, wearing a rigid brace after having his broken neck surgically repaired.

The family of Juan Manuel Alvarez, the former Compton laborer convicted of murdering 11 people when he caused a deadly train crash three years ago, says that although they expect Alvarez to be punished for his actions, he does not deserve to die. "If at any one point I really felt that he did this with any intent to hurt anybody, I wouldn't be here trying to defend him," said Beto Alvarez, 41, who raised his now 29-year-old cousin as a son. "He was not in his right state of mind.