WORLD> America
Calif. rail agency: Engineer's error caused wreck
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-09-14 19:28

Firefighters who extricated the dead from the wreck were rotated in and out of the scene to prevent emotional exhaustion.

Related readings:
 Head-on train collision kills 12 in Los Angeles
 At least 10 dead, over 100 hurt in L.A. train crash
 Commuter train, freight train collide in LA, 2 die
"There are some things we are trained for, there are some things I don't care what kind of training you have, you don't always prepare for," fire Capt. Armando Hogan said. "This situation, particularly early on, with people inside the train, with the injuries, and with people moaning and crying and screaming, it was a traumatic experience."

The collision occurred on a horseshoe-shaped section of track in Chatsworth at the west end of the San Fernando Valley, near a 500-foot-long tunnel underneath Stoney Point Park. There is a siding at one end of the tunnel where one train can wait for another to pass.

"Even if the train is on the main track, it must go through a series of signals and each one of the signals must be obeyed," Tyrrell said. "What we believe happened, barring any new information from the NTSB, is we believe that our engineer failed to stop ... and that was the cause of the accident.

"We don't know how the error happened," she said, adding that Metrolink determined the cause by reviewing dispatch records and computers.

At an NTSB press conference late Saturday, Higgins said it was too early to determine the cause of the crash but noted that a pair of "switches" that control whether a train goes into a siding were open. One of them should have been closed, Higgins said.

"The indication is that it was forced open," possibly by the Metrolink train, Higgins said of one of the switches.

Higgins said rescue crews on Saturday recovered two data recorders from the Metrolink train and one data recorder and one video recorder from the freight train. The video has pictures from forward-looking cameras and the data recorders have information on speed, braking patterns and whether the horn was used.

Investigators also will test the signals on the track and the brakes on the trains as well as interview Metrolink dispatchers.