CLEVELAND, January 6 — A truck driver was killed and more than 20 people injured when a truck slammed into a Metrolink train during morning rush hour today near Los Angeles.
Among the injured was the train’s locomotive engineer, BLE Member J.L. Cook, 47, a resident of Palmdale, Calif. Brother Cook was life-flighted from the scene of the accident to a local hospital where his status remains unknown.
Updates will be provided on the BLE website as they are made available.
Brother Cook is a member of BLE Division 20 (Los Angeles). He first joined the BLE in October of 1970.
About 50 passengers were aboard train No. 210 from the Santa Clarita Valley to Los Angeles when the accident happened at about 9:30 a.m., authorities said.
The truck drove onto the tracks at a crossing where the gates were down and the signal lights were flashing, witness Greg Peale told KABC-TV. The truck burst into flames upon impact and the truck driver was pronounced dead at the scene.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash but has not categorized it as a major incident. The BLE’s Safety Task Force stands ready to assist the NTSB in its investigation, said BLE General Secretary-Treasurer William C. Walpert, who heads the Safety Task Force.
Firefighters pulled some passengers from the wreckage and set up a triage area to treat the injured. Some passengers carried the injured from the upended cars before firefighters arrived. Passersby used a metal girder to smash the window of a door on one upended passenger car and helped other people to safety.
The train had four passenger cars and an engine at the rear. In that mode the train is operated by an engineer in a cab of the lead passenger car.
Burbank is about 10 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)