(The following story by Ben Goad and Dug Begley appeared on the Press-Enterprise website on September 19, 2009.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A year after 25 people died in Metrolink’s deadliest crash, Sen. Barbara Boxer is again calling upon the passenger rail line to add a second engineer on all of its trains.
In the aftermath of the September 2008 wreck, investigators learned that Metrolink engineer Robert Sanchez, a man who lived for years in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, sent and received text messages moments before he sped through a stop signal and collided head-on with a freight train.
Authorities also learned that Sanchez, who died in the crash, sometimes brought teens into the cab on secret ride-alongs in violation of regulations. More than 130 people were injured in addition to those killed.
Boxer, D-Calif., heads the Senate committee that oversees transportation. During a congressional hearing after the accident, she requested that Metrolink add a second crewmember to all locomotives to avoid a repeat of the tragedy. Then-Metrolink Chairman Ron Roberts, a Temecula councilman, said extra crewmembers were already being added, and that the line was adding surveillance cameras to guard against future violations.
In a letter sent Friday to current Metrolink Chairman Keith Millhouse, Boxer expressed concern that about 87 percent of the line’s trains continue to operate without a second engineer.
“While I recognize that Metrolink is moving forward with the installation of cameras in its train cabs, I continue to believe that a second crew member in the cab is an essential interim safety measure that must be employed,” Boxer wrote.
Metrolink spokesman Francisco Oaxaca acknowledged that many trains continue to run without the second member, particularly on busy days. But he stressed that the use of two engineers per train was a short-term solution.
Other safety improvement plans, such as installing inward-facing cameras to monitor engineers and provide footage in accident investigations, take longer and cost more to implement than putting standby engineers in cabs.
“The second set of eyes was never meant to be a permanent solution,” Oaxaca said earlier this month. “The cameras are the ultimate solution.”
The agency still uses additional crew members — engineers who are on standby should someone call in sick or is injured or delayed on the job — to act as a second set of eyes in some locomotives. When not needed to fill in, they ride on lines where the frequency of freight and passenger trains on one set of tracks in greatest, Oaxaca said.
The standby crews are not large enough to put two people in each locomotive, officials said.
“On most days, there would be significantly larger number of trains with one engineer,” Oaxaca said.
For Boxer, that’s not good enough.
“I prefer the extra person in the cab,” she said during a recent interview.