Commuter train engineer didn't hit brakes

updated 11:45 p.m. ET Sept. 16, 2008

LOS ANGELES - The commuter train engineer in Friday's deadly rail collision in Los Angeles did not hit the brakes before crashing into a freight train, investigators said Tuesday.

The National Transportation and Safety Board also announced that both engineers had only four to five seconds to react to the sight of other train coming around the bend.

Commuter train officials have blamed its engineer for running a red light and crashing into an oncoming Union Pacific freight on Friday in Chatsworth. The NTSB says the freight engineer hit the brakes about two seconds before the impact, which killed 25 people.

Meanwhile, rail service resumed Tuesday along the tracks. An Amtrak Surfliner was the first passenger train to use the newly repaired stretch of tracks, leaving the nearby Chatsworth station about 3:45 p.m. PDT. It was set to be followed about a half-hour later by a Metrolink train.

The NTSB announced details from its investigation after conducting a visibility test Tuesday to determine when the engineers involved in the crash would have been able to see each other in the moments before the nation's deadliest rail disaster in 15 years.

A Metrolink train and a Union Pacific locomotive were brought nose to nose on the tracks where the crash occurred. Investigators then backed the stand-in trains away from each other.

In the moments before Friday's collision, a Union Pacific freight train had exited a tunnel, while the commuter train was rounding a horseshoe bend.

Final test at the site
NTSB officials said it would be the final test conducted at the site. The agency did not immediately return phone messages seeking comment about the results of the test.

One test observer was Lilly Varghese, a friend of 57-year-old victim Beverly Mosley.

"I came here to pay respect to where I lost her," Varghese said. "She lost her soul here."

Varghese said she and Mosley worked together as nurses in the prenatal unit of a hospital. Mosley had two adult daughters and had become a grandmother about seven months ago.

The Metrolink commuter rail service has blamed on the failure of its engineer to stop for a red signal, but the NTSB has withheld judgment and said its investigation will take months to complete.

In Washington, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation Tuesday requiring the installation of technology to prevent train crashes and warned that there would be more disasters without it.

The California Democrat hopes to nudge Congress to pass her requirement for so-called positive train control before recessing at the end of next week. The House and Senate have already passed separate legislation to implement the technology but time is running out to reconcile the differing versions.

The technology can engage the brakes if a train misses a signal or gets off track. It has been installed on a fraction of U.S. rail tracks but not on the one where Friday's crash occurred.

Feinstein blamed "a resistance in the railroad community in America" to the price tag of installing the systems.

Failure to act now, she said, amounts to "negligence, and I'll even go as far to say I believe it's criminal negligence not to do so."

Resolutions supporting the technology were also introduced by members of the Los Angeles City Council and the county Board of Supervisors.

The Association of American Railroads, the lobbying arm for the freight railroads, has said it does not oppose the legislation but is concerned that the technology has not been perfected.

Texting to blame?
Meanwhile, federal investigators were continuing to look into whether the engineer of the Metrolink commuter train was text messaging on a cell phone before Friday's deadly wreck. The engineer, Robert Sanchez, was killed in the collision.

Investigators with the NTSB did not find a cell phone belonging to Sanchez in the wreckage, but two teenage train buffs who befriended him told KCBS-TV that they received a text message from him a minute before the crash.

Higgins said the NTSB issued a subpoena to get the engineer's cell phone records. She said Verizon Wireless had five days to respond to the demand.

Higgins also said tests at the crash site showed the red and yellow signals were working properly, and there were no obstructions that may have prevented the engineer from seeing the red light.

"The question is, did he see it as red?" Higgins said. "Did he see it as something else? Did he see it at all?"

Jerry Romero, who normally takes Metrolink 111 home but skipped it Friday to pick up a bicycle, said he was upset by reports that the engineer may have been texting.

"That would be pretty disturbing in respect to what we're going through as a society, this fascination we have with gizmos," he said.

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