(The Associated Press circulated the following story by Erica Werner on September 23.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Southern California’s Metrolink service is considering adding a second engineer on its trains to help with safety in the wake of the Sept. 12 collision in the Los Angeles area that killed 25 people.
Metrolink chairman Ron Roberts disclosed that the move was under consideration during a U.S. Senate briefing Tuesday in Washington. He and other rail officials faced stinging accusations that they weren’t moving fast enough on safety.
Authorities say the engineer on the Metrolink commuter train that day did not stop at a red signal that would have prevented the head-on collision with a Union Pacific freight train.
California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, backed up by a witness from the National Transportation Safety Board, spent much of the hearing demanding to know why railroads had yet to install safety technology that can apply brakes on trains headed for collision.
Officials with Metrolink, Union Pacific and the Federal Railroad Administration insisted they supported the technology, called “positive train control,” but repeatedly hedged when Boxer and Feinstein pressed them on why they hadn’t gotten it done.
The technology has been installed on portions of the Northeast Corridor, and FRA Administrator Joseph H. Boardman acknowledged that “Positive train control would have prevented this collision.”
Officials said they were working on it but it took time and was more complicated where freight and commuter trains share rail lines, as is the case in many places in California, including where the accident occurred.
When the senators pressed for interim safety measures, Roberts said Metrolink was discussing the option of a second engineer. Feinstein and Boxer pressed him to make it happen.
“I, for one, believe you have to do that, and not to do that in the wake of past accidents makes the railway very culpable,” Feinstein said.