(The following story by Will Oremus and Ken McLaughlin appeared on The Argus website on May 4.)
Caltrain has invested millions in fences, educational videos, ad campaigns and even suicide-prevention walks to stop people from being killed on its tracks.
Nothing seems to work.
Now the commuter rail line is turning to the latest in video technology — cameras mounted on the front and back of trains — to learn how and why people die on the tracks.
Caltrain’s board of directors today is expected to ask the state for $500,000 in Homeland Security funds to install the cameras on all 30 trains on the San Francisco-to-Gilroy line.
The cameras would record suicides, which represent more than half of the fatalities each year, and other deaths in the same way police cameras record arrests for drunken driving. The 24-hour cameras would have the added benefit of recording the movements of anyone tampering with the trains or tracks.
The digital set of eyes on the front of a speeding Caltrain will not directly prevent collisions with pedestrians any more than an engineer’s human eyes. However, the cameras document how the deaths occur in a way the railroad has never seen before.
That information could aid death investigations, identify trespassers and even pinpoint weak links in Caltrain’s network of fences. Transit officials hope that the presence of cameras will cut down on pedestrians and drivers trying to sneak around crossing gates.
Caltrain has been trying for years to stanch the bloodshed on its tracks, without much success.
This year, six people have been killed. Three are confirmed suicides.
Caltrain’s deadliest year was 1995, when 20 people died. Since then, the figure has been anywhere from five to 18.
“Anything we can do to reduce the number of idiots from running in front of the train or driving around the gates, we are going to do,” said Arthur Lloyd, a retired Amtrak employee who sits on Caltrain’s board.
Capitol Corridor also sees the cameras as a way to collect data on how accidents happen, spokeswoman Luna Salaver said.
“If it’s a situation where perhaps someone is listening to their iPod or they’re on a PDA, the camera would catch that,” she said. “Then we would know what we needed to work on as far as public education.”
Beyond that, Salaver added, the cameras could help quickly resolve some of the toughest questions that arise in the wake of a pedestrian fatality.
“Often the first questions reporters ask are: ‘Was it intentional?’ ‘Was the person trying to beat the train, or not paying attention?’ ‘Or was it suicide?’
“Now,” she said, “we’ll be able to reconstruct that situation.”
Denise Tyrrell, a spokesman for Metrolink in Southern California, said most new locomotives are coming off the assembly line with cameras as a standard feature. The agency just got its first such locomotive this week, she said. The transit agencies plan to use $380,000 in Prop. 1B money to install cameras on its 38 other locomotives.
In a typical tragedy, there will be several eyewitnesses with different stories, Dunn said.
“And all will be adamant that their version is the truth,” she said.
“Now everyone involved in an accident can be reassured exactly what happened,” she said.
The cameras not only will help the agency fend off frivolous lawsuits but will help bring closure to family members as well, she said.
A death in August on the Caltrain tracks helps illustrate that point. Chuck Fox, a middle-aged San Mateo man, reportedly had been drinking with friends near the Hayward Park station in San Mateo when he got up and placed himself in a train’s path.
After he was killed, signs pointed to suicide, but at least one of his close friends insisted it was an accident.
“I’m sure that in a situation like that,” Dunn said, “video evidence would be an important tool in the investigation.”