(The Associated Press circulated the following article on June 28.)
LOS ANGELES — State legislators rejected a proposal to ban commuter rail lines from using locomotives to push passenger cars from behind.
Assembly Majority Leader Dario Frommer, D-Glendale, introduced the measure in response to the deadly January 2005 Metrolink crash, which killed 11 people and injured more than 180 when a train struck an SUV. The train was being pushed by a locomotive.
Frommer’s bill would have required the state’s four commuter railroads to close the first 10 rows of seats in cab cars and to stop pushing trains with locomotives by 2010.
The Senate Committee on Housing and Transportation on Tuesday unanimously struck down the measure.
Instead, the panel approved an amended bill calling for the University of California, Berkeley to study rail safety including push operations.
Committee members said they wanted research that was independent of two studies by the Federal Railroad Administration, which concluded there’s little safety difference between push and pull operations.
Frommer said such a study could support banning push operations.
“An independent study would be hard to ignore,” he said.
Metrolink has had four major crashes involving push operations since 1992 in which 15 people died and more than 300 were injured, Frommer said. By contrast, nobody died and 25 people were injured in two major crashes of trains pulled by locomotives, he said.
Metrolink officials say push operations are safe, but have banned seating in the front third of cab cars since the 2005 crash.
The ban would have affected four commuter lines – the Altamont Commuter Express and Caltrain in Northern California, the Coaster in San Diego County and Metrolink, which serves six Southland counties.