(The following story by Steve Hymon appeared on the Los Angeles Times website on October 6.)
LOS ANGELES — Top officials with the firm that contracts to run Metrolink trains made their first public comments Sunday night about last month’s deadly head-on collision of a passenger train with a Union Pacific freight train in Chatsworth.
“Words cannot express how saddened we are over the loss of life and injuries suffered in this terrible accident,” said Veolia Transportation Chief Executive Mark Joseph in a written statement given to The Times. “Our hearts are broken and our entire company is stricken with grief.”
“Whether the result of human error, system failure, or other causes, we will share in the broad responsibility of finding solutions to lessen the risks inherent in passenger rail service,” Joseph added. “Public transportation is an essential service for everyday life in this country, and this tragedy underscores more than ever before the need of improving our public transportation systems.”
In an interview in San Diego, where Veolia officials are attending a mass transit convention this week, Joseph emphasized the firm’s safety record and said Veolia is participating in the investigation of the crash by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Veolia officials said that the NTSB has asked them not to discuss the crash while the probe continues, and they declined comment on all questions relating to potential causes of the crash, which killed 25 people. They also declined to discuss the personnel record of Robert Sanchez, the engineer of the Metrolink train who was an employee of Veolia and who was killed in the crash.
The NTSB has said the Metrolink train ran a red signal intended to stop the train before entering a stretch of single track in use by an eastbound Union Pacific freight train.
In addition, the NTSB has said preliminary data indicates that 57 text messages were sent from or received by Sanchez’s cellphone while he was on duty on the day of the crash, including one sent 22 seconds before the collision. The agency, however, cautioned that the precise timing of the messages needed to be verified.
“I think up to this accident, we had the strongest [cellphone] policy in the business given the ones I’d seen,” said Ronald J. Hartman, an executive vice president for rail for Veolia.
Hartman said Veolia’s policy prohibits cellphone use by engineers and requires that devices be turned off and out of reach while engineers are in the cab of a locomotive. He said Veolia engineers encounter supervisors on a daily basis and that supervisors check for cellphone usage.
He added that Veolia supervisors sometimes call engineers’ cellphones — when the numbers for those phones are available — to see if engineers are using phones while operating trains.