METROLINK DERAILMENT

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OlympianHiawatha

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Joined
Feb 7, 2008
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Location
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A Ventura to Los Angeles Metrolink Train has derailed after hitting "something" at a crossing. Cars are on their sides and several injuries reported from first KNBC reports.
 
Considering what their past wrecks looked like, I can imagine Metrolink is incredibly relieved this was a largely Rotem train.
 
As of 0930 CST KNBC reports no fatalities. The "something" was a truck which exploded on impact. The driver of the truck fled but was quickly arrested by Oxnard PD and hopefully faces a long future at San Quentin or similar facility.
 
A lot of northbound Pacific Surfliners will be affected/annuled as Camarillo is as far north as they will be able to travel. Southbound trains will be limited to Oxnard.

How today's Coast Starlight (#14) will be handled will be interesting. As far as a bus bridge goes, there is no trainset available north of the accident site until #11 gets down to So Calif (probably Santa Barbara) this afternoon/evening.
 
The text says truck was a tractor-trailer, and the announcer on the TV segment said "pickup." Hard to tell from the video which it was, as there isn't much left.
In the aerial footage I saw on KABC-7, it looked like a "utility" type pickup. Mention was made of a truck pulling a trailer rather than a "big-rig" type unit. The trailer itself being left smoldering at the crossing.
 
Considering what their past wrecks looked like, I can imagine Metrolink is incredibly relieved this was a largely Rotem train.
Metrolink spent millions developing and purchasing the Hyundai Rotem "Guardian fleet" with promises that they had technologies that would "absorb, balance and dissipate energy away from the passenger occupied area" and "keep the train safely aligned" in a crash.
Today they came off the rails with seemingly very little deformation in the "crumple zones." I'm disappointed.
 
We are going to keep two topics open for this incident. This one, in the commuter rail forum, will discuss the incident. The other topic, in the Amtrak forum, will discuses Amtrak service disruptions resulting from the incident. We may move posts from one topic to the other to keep the discussion in each topic focused. if you post in one topic and your post disappears, it was moved to the other topic.
 
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AP is now reporting that the truck was stuck on the tracks at the time of the crash.

An investigator tells The Associated Press the commuter train accident northwest of Los Angeles occurred after a truck became stuck on the tracks.

The investigator says the driver is not from the area and made a premature right turn. His box truck, with a trailer, was struck by the train at 5:45 a.m. Tuesday in Oxnard.
 
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The LA times has a decent rundown of what we know:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-metrolink-crash-live-updates-20150224-htmlstory.html

From there, looks like a case of "turned and tried to drive on the tracks":

The driver, a 54-year-old Arizona native, was hauling a 12-foot trailer and was southbound on Rice Avenue and wanted to turn right onto 5th Street when he turned right onto the railroad tracks instead and got stuck, said Oxnard police assistant chief Jason Benites.
From Google street view, the truck would have turned right onto the tracks where the silver tanker truck is.

Screen Shot 2015-02-24 at 3.39.10 PM.png
 
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Hmm, wonder how long until he blames his GPS.

I guess the key question is going to be how long between the time he got stuck and the time the train got there. Did he make

any effort to call 911/notify the railroad? And of course, when did he leave the scene? Before or after the accident?

The driver was said to have been "disoriented" when found by police. Was that as a result of shock/trauma from the crash,

or did he have a medical condition prior to the crash?
 
NPR News is reporting that the conductor of the train was critically injured. I wonder if they mean, instead, the engineer of the commuter train, which I would consider more likely, unless the conductor happened to be in a particularly dangerous location (like between cars?) at the instant of derailment.
 
I have a feeling the conductor was in the cab with the engineer. This often seems to happen in push mode of the cab is modern and large. It could also be usual press confusion.
 
I have a feeling the conductor was in the cab with the engineer. This often seems to happen in push mode of the cab is modern and large. It could also be usual press confusion.
On Metrolink, the Conductor is normally in the passenger part of the consist. He may pay a "visit" to the cab but, not often that I observe on my daily Metrolink commute on the Ventura County line. I'm sure you know that the media generally doesn't know the difference between engineer and conductor.
 
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I listened to the last news conference... NPR screwed up, it was the engineer who was injured (most of my colleagues in the media do not realize that the term conductor and engineer are not interchangeable).

As an aside, on Metrolink trains the conductor has a workstation in the lower level of the cabin car. It's where they keep their orders and other documentation. Of course that doesn't mean that's always where the conductor is.
 
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I listen to the last conference… NPR screwed up, it was the engineer who was injured (most of my colleagues in the media do not realize that the term conductor and engineer are not interchangeable).

As an aside, on Metrolink trains the conductor has a workstation in the lower level of the cabin car. It's where they keep their orders and other documentation. Of course that doesn't mean that's always where the conductor is.
Yes, his workstation is there at the door where "PNA"s (Persons Needing Assistance) enter or exit the train. If he was there, he would have been in the cab car (if not walking the train) but, not necessarily in the cab itself.
 
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This was brought up in one of the articles, and it was one of my immediate thoughts. This train was in push mode. Gotta wonder if there would have been a derailment at all if it was loco-first. Something about the weight and momentum of the loco pushing from behind is disconcerting.

Most Amtrak vs Vehicle accidents don't result in injuries or deaths onboard because they are loco-front.

Now, that being said, the Rotem coaches saved lives over the Bombardiers, but the train was also a 5:30 AM train with only about 10-15 people per car. A full train - even in the Rotems - would have been much more catastrophic.
 
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On Facebook and various other rail forums people have posted multiple examples where similar derailments happened in pull mode. The derailment is caused by parts of the crushed vehicle getting under the train and tossing it off the track. This can happen to almost anything. The locomotives while heavy, are not that immune to having a small piece of metal lifting their wheels off the track and onto dust.
 
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