January 21, 2010
NTSB News: Texting Engineer to Blame for 2008 Chatsworth Rail Accident, Says the NTSB
The National Transportation Safety Board released its final report on the cause of the September 12, 2008 Chatsworth, California rail accident which killed 25 people and injured more than 100 after a Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train collided. The NTSB determined that the engineer was at fault for the crash because he failed to observe and respond to a red signal. The NTSB added that the engineer was text messaging at the time. The NTSB is now recommending that the government require audio and image recorders in the cabs of all locomotives in order to better enforce the rule prohibiting engineers from using wireless devices while operating a train. Contributing to the fatal crash, the NTSB said, was the lack of a positive train control system (PTC) which would have stopped the Metrolink train at the red signal.

January 19, 2010
Southern California Public Radio: NTSB to Hold Meeting on 2008 Chatsworth, CA Crash
The National Transportation Safety Board will hold a public hearing later this week addressing the 2008 Chatsworth Metrolink crash. The hearing will detail the NTSB’s final report on the deadliest crash in Metrolink’s history, which claimed 25 lives and injured more than 100 others when a Metrolink commuter train collided with a freight train in Chatsworth. The hearing will be held in Washington D.C. on Thursday, January 21st, and will be aired live on its website. A synopsis of the final report, including the probable cause of the crash and safety recommendations, will be released after the meeting.

December 29, 2009
Daily News: Metrolink to Pay $39 Million in Train Derailment Settlements
Metrolink has agreed to pay about $39 million to settle all but one of the wrongful death and injury lawsuits filed over a 2005 train derailment in Glendale that killed 11 people and injured 180.  A lawyer representing some crash victims said that 185 of the 186 cases against Metrolink were resolved.  A judge has urged both parties to resolve the remaining suit.

December 17, 2009
Daily News: Metrolink to Receive First Crash-Resistant Cab Cars Next Month
Metrolink officials announced that they expect the first delivery of new state-of-the-art cab cars to arrive next month.  The new cars, which are designed to better withstand crashes, are Metrolink’s partial answer to heavy scrutiny following two passenger train crashes this decade that killed a total of 36 people, making Metrolink one of the nation’s most dangerous rail systems.  The agency plans to have 117 new crash-resistant cars in service by late summer of 2010. 

"From an impact standpoint, these new cars sound like they will absorb a lot of the impact that otherwise would be transmitted to the passengers, making it safer for them," said Los Angeles attorney Paul Hedlund, who is handling lawsuits involving the Glendale and Chatsworth crashes.   "But I think Metrolink has been moving too slowly on automatic controls, like being able to tell within the cab car or the locomotive that the signal you just passed is in fact red. It's just incredible in this day and age that on trains carrying all these people we don't have the ability to let the engineer know they just blew through a red light."

November 16, 2009
USA Today:  Feds Propose Local Transit Regulation
The Transportation Department will propose that the federal government regulate local transit agencies.  This announcement comes in the wake of increased subway and light-rail passenger mishaps including an accident in June, 2009 on Washington DC’s Metrorail system that killed nine people and injured 80.  As of now, there is a law that prohibits the federal government from regulating the nation’s subways.  The legislative proposal is expected to be seen at a House committee hearing on Dec. 8.

Sep 22, 2009
CNN:  Federal Safety Investigators Release Nationwide Rail Alert
The Federal Transit Administration released an urgent NTSB recommendation to rail operators regarding rail system flaws found during a probe into this summer’s deadly Washington D.C. Metrorail crash.  According to the NTSB, “all rail transit operators and railroads should be informed” about the possibility of system flaws that can cause a track circuit to fail in detecting a train.  Meanwhile, the NTSB continues to investigate the precise cause of the June 22 crash, which killed nine people and injured 76.  “However,” the NTSB said, “our findings so far indicate a pressing need to issue these recommendations to immediately address safety glitches we have found that could lead to another tragic accident."

July 19, 2009
CBS Channel 5:  A Muni Train Crash in San Francisco Leaves 48 Injured
Forty eight people were injured, four of them seriously, in a San Francisco Municipal Railway train collision on July 18, 2009.  The crash occurred when an L train rear-ended a K train at the city’s West Portal Station.  The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash by evaluating the condition of the train tracks, signal systems and structural integrity of the locomotives involved.  Investigators are looking into human error as a possible cause.

June 23, 2009
New York Times:  D.C. Metro Train Crash Deadliest in City’s History
On Monday, June 23, 2009, at about 5 p.m., a train traveling at a considerable speed rear-ended a stopped train on the red line of the Metro subway system in Washington, D.C.  Nine people died and 80 others were wounded in what is the deadliest Metro subway train accident in the city’s history.  Metro officials continued to comb through the mangled wreckage in the days following the crash, searching for additional victims as well as any clues as to how the tragic collision occurred.  The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is conducting an investigation of the crash which so far has pointed to such possible causes as mechanical failure and driver error.  After testing the signaling circuit at the site of the crash, the NTSB said they found “anomalies,” prompting the Washington Metro to announce its pending inspection of all automatic train signaling censors.  The Metro system will be manually run until all censors have been tested and proven effective, officials said. 

The stopped train, which consisted of newer 3000 and 5000-series train cars, carried nine data recorders which have been recovered.  According to investigators, eight of the recorders captured the events of the crash.  The moving train was a Metro 1000 series, an older model which in the past few years had been the topic of scrutiny by the NTSB.  According to an NTSB member, the board had voiced concern about the older train models, suggesting they be either phased out or at least retrofitted with more sophisticated safety technology.  The driver of the moving train, which was not equipped with data recorders, was among those killed.

May 12, 2009
Glendale News Press: Lawsuit against Metrolink Moves Ahead After Judge Denies Defense Motion
Attorneys continue to dispute over pretrial motions of a lawsuit against Metrolink over the 2005 Glendale derailment that killed 11 passengers and injured nearly 200 others.  The wrongful-death and personal-injury lawsuits against Metrolink moved ahead on Monday after Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias threw out a defense motion arguing that the trial would set a perilous precedent by equating all railroad crossings as overtly dangerous.  The collision occurred on January 26, 2005, when Manuel Alvarez, who was convicted last year in criminal court for causing the crash, parked his Jeep on Metrolink tracks near Chevy Chase Drive, by the Glendale-Los Angeles border.  Alvarez is serving 11 consecutive life sentences in prison.  Plaintiffs contend that that the “pushing” of rail passenger cars is likely responsible for the deaths and injuries which resulted from the southbound Metrolink train’s collision with the Jeep left on the tracks.  As deranged as the action of parking a vehicle on the railroad tracks was, Metrolink’s unsafe procedure led to the tragic consequences in this case.

April 21, 2009
Ventura County Star: Metrolink to Outfit all Rail Cars With New Safety Technology by the End of 2009
On April 20, 2009, Metrolink outlined plans to improve passenger safety in a presentation given to the Simi Valley City Council.  The meeting detailed Metrolink’s plan to have all rail cars fitted with a technology called crash energy management, which would potentially diffuse the force of a crash throughout the train, preventing passenger injuries and derailments.  It was the first in a series of presentations to be given throughout the county by Moorpark city councilman and chairman of Metrolink’s board of directors, Keith Millhouse.  During the presentation, Millhouse stated that he would do “everything in his power” to make Metrolink as safe as possible.  The safety of Metrolink passenger trains have come under intense scrutiny after a deadly Sept. 12 Metrolink crash that killed 25 people and injured another 135 in Chatsworth.

March 09, 2009
Examiner.com: Debate Over Train Passenger Safety Sparked
by Hearing on 2008 Metrolink Chatsworth, CA Collision
A hearing in February detailing the human error that led to the 2008 Metrolink commuter train catastrophe that killed 25 people in Chatsworth, California has sparked debate over the rail industry’s options to ensure passenger safety for at least six more years until technology is installed that could prevent another collision. Federal investigators found that the Metrolink engineer was text messaging 22 seconds before the collision. In addition, they found that the conductor of the freight train that collided with the commuter train was also texting while on duty and tested positive for marijuana. Cell phone use by train operators has been banned and a new law requiring the installation of technology to stop trains on a collision course (“positive train control”) by 2015 has been passed. The debate now centers around what to do in the mean time. Suggestions include a security camera in the locomotive cab which some believe would help keep passengers safe, while others believe would be intrusive and far too expensive.

February 10, 2009
NTSB: NTSB will hold public hearing on 2008 Chatsworth, California Metrolink collision
Attorney J. Clark Aristei will be attending the National Transportation Safety Board’s two-day public hearing on behalf of his clients regarding the 2008 Chatsworth, California collision between a Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train which resulted in 25 deaths and numerous injuries.  Mr. Aristei, a mass disaster attorney, represents 22 victims from both the Metrolink Chatsworth and Metrolink Glendale disasters.

Representatives from Metrolink, Union Pacific, the Federal Railroad Administration and California Utilities Commission, among other railroad experts, will discuss topics including: train signals, operating rules (including calling signals and the use of cell phones), and positive train control. The hearing will be held at the NTSB's Board Room and Conference Center, 429 L'Enfant Plaza, S.W., Washington, D.C.

January 8, 2009
Los Angeles Times: Metrolink report urges safety guidelines
A safety report on Metrolink written by a panel of industry experts was posted on the company’s website on January 7, 2009. The report calls for improvements of employee monitoring as well as enhancements to safety technology. The panel of experts also urged that board members be better informed about operations. The report was requested by Metrolink after a September 12 collision between a Metrolink passenger train and a Union Pacific freight train killed 25 people.

December 12, 2008
Long Beach Press-Telegram:  Sweeping Metrolink upgrades recommended
On December 12, a panel of rail safety experts proposed billions of dollars in upgrades, including automated braking systems and safety improvements at railroad crossings, as well as a management reorganization at Metrolink.  The panel also recommended increased staffing to reduce fatigue and annual medical evaluations of engineers and conductors as part of a sweeping plan to improve the safety of Metrolink’s commuter trains.  The 11-member panel, made up of scholars and experts from the commuter industry, was formed to examine Metrolink’s safety and operating procedures.   Metrolink requested the report from the safety panel after the Sept. 12 Chatsworth collision between a Metrolink commuter train and Union Pacific freight train which resulted in 25 deaths and left 135 injured.

December 12, 2008
Los Angeles Times:  Chatsworth crash's roots lie 20 years in Metrolink's past
According to documents and interviews with experts and former Metrolink officials, the reason for the deadly Chatsworth Metrolink collision originated years ago, when the commuter line’s founders failed to make adequate decisions that would protect the lives of  passengers.  Through agreements and contracts made in the early 1990s, between Metrolink and freight lines, Metrolink gambled with future passenger’s lives by choosing to operate without any form of automatic braking system.  This technology, experts argue, has been around since the 1920's and would have prevented the Sept. 12 Chatsworth crash that killed 25 and injured 135.  Metrolink argues that they are contractually bound to the freight lines, with which they share rail systems and safety equipment.  Experts and officials argue that Metrolink could have requested permission from the government to install a system of its own.

September 12, 2008
Trains Collide in Chatsworth, California
A Southern California Metrolink commuter train collided head-on with a Union Pacific freight train on September 12, 2008.   The collision occurred on a single railroad track at the northwest end of the San Fernando Valley in the city of Chatsworth.  The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash and trying to determine why the Metrolink engineer ignored warning signals to stop his train.  He failed to do so and crashed head-on into a Union Pacific freight train traveling in the opposite direction.  The resulting collision between the two trains killed 25 passengers and injured 135, 40 critically.

July 17, 2008
Los Angeles Times: Jury spares the life of killer in Metrolink crash
A California jury has decided that Juan Manuel Alvarez should be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the deaths of 11 people killed after he parked his jeep on the railroad tracks in Glendale, California on January 26, 2005.  Alvarez testified in his criminal trial that he parked the jeep on the tracks to commit suicide, but changed his mind and tried to move the jeep off the tracks.  After the jeep became stuck he fled the scene.  Shortly afterwards a Metrolink passenger train being pushed by a locomotive slammed into the jeep, causing a deadly chain of events involving another commuter Metrolink train and a Union Pacific rail car parked on the tracks next to a Costco.  Eleven people were killed and almost 200 passengers were injured in the wreck.  The jury handed down this sentence after concluding that Alvarez was guilty of 11 counts of first degree murder.  Alvarez will be officially sentenced on August 20, 2008.

June 26, 2008
Long Beach Press-Telegram: Man convicted in train deaths
On January 26, 2005, Juan Alvarez drove his jeep onto train tracks in Glendale, California.   In the moments following, a Metrolink train crashed into the Jeep, derailed, and smashed into another commuter train.  Eleven people were killed and 180 were injured.  On June 26, 2008, Juan Alvarez was found guilty on 11 counts of first degree murder and one count of arson.  He was acquitted on the single count of train wrecking.  Alvarez claimed during his trial that he was trying to commit suicide because he was despondent over his estrangement with his wife.  He had admitted responsibility for the derailment, but over five days of testimony, he claimed he was only trying to kill himself and that he had doused the jeep and himself with gasoline and had planned to be sitting inside when the train hit.  He changed his mind at the last minute and supposedly was unable to move the jeep before he abandoned it.  The trial lasted approximately two months.  The penalty phase will begin on July 7, 2008.  He is facing the death penalty.

December 3, 2007
Chicago Tribune: Crashed Amtrak train was going 25 m.p.h. too fast, officials say
The Amtrak train that slammed into a freight train on November 30, 2007, in Chicago, Illinois, was traveling at more than double the speed limit when it crashed. A signal light indicated that another train was on the same track, however, the Amtrak train did not slow down. Sixty passengers were injured. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, when the engineer of the Amtrak train noticed the Norfolk Southern freight train ahead, he applied the emergency brakes, skidding about 400 to 500 feet. The Amtrak train slammed into the freight train at a speed of 35 mph. Part of the investigation will include why the signal was not obeyed and why two trains were on the same track.

November 30, 2007
AFP: Passenger train crash injures 30 in Chicago
An Amtrak train crashed into a freight train today, injuring at least six people. The crash occurred this afternoon on the Southside of Chicago, Illinois. The Amtrak train was carrying about 150 passengers to Chicago from Grand Rapids, Michigan. The engine from the Amtrak train was knocked off its track and fell on top of the freight train. About 100 passengers characterized as "walking wounded" were examined at the scene. The critical and seriously injured were transported to the hospital.

October 20, 2007
PilotOnline.com: Sweeping railroad safety overhaul passes House
The House of Representatives passed The Federal Railroad Safety Improvement Act on October 17, 2007.  The Federal Railroad Administration will be reorganized into the Federal Railroad Safety Administration.  For fiscal years 2008 to 2011, $1.1 billion is authorized for expenses.  Norfolk Southern Corp., among other large railroads, are now required to develop plans for installing "positive train control" technology.  The new safety bill requires more railroad inspectors, heavier penalities for violations and puts limits on work hours for railroad workers.  

September 21, 2007
LA Times: Gold Line train hits vehicle; 6 injured
Shortly after 7 AM this morning, a Metro Gold Line train, which opened in 2003, was traveling from downtown Los Angeles to Pasadena when an SUV crashed into the side of it.  The impact caused the train to catch fire, which was quickly extinguished. Six people were injured.  This was the second accident involving the Metro Gold Line in the past two weeks.