(The following article by Lisa Mascaro and Kerry Cavanaugh was posted on the Los Angeles Daily News website on January 28. Tim Smith is the BLET’s California State Legislative Board Chairman.)
LOS ANGELES — Politicians and safety experts on Thursday pressed Metrolink to review its practice of pushing trains with rear locomotives and called for costly grade-separated crossings across Southern California in the aftermath of Wednesday’s devastating crash.
Mayor James Hahn held a morning press conference to urge solutions and called for Metrolink and the MTA to consider using sensors, cameras or other devices to warn conductors of impediments on tracks.
“The incident (Wednesday) mandates that we do something,” said the mayor, who called on Metrolink to review its practice of pushing trains.
“Obviously the best solution is an expensive one — to grade separate. That’s the most expensive solution, but it’s the one that’s the safest,” he said. “If you can’t, what are we going to do? Maybe we don’t allow every single street to cross the tracks like it used to.”
Metrolink said it’s up to the cities and counties to get funds to build grade crossings on their streets.
Metrolink has 443 at-grade crossings on its seven routes across Southern California. Making them grade-separated would cost as much as $8 billion — about $15 million to $20 million for each crossing.
Even more, crossings need to win priority from the Public Utilities Commission, which oversees crossings statewide.
“The agencies that are responsible for soliciting that funding are the cities or counties who are responsible for the street,” said Metrolink spokesman Francisco Oaxaca.
Hahn won approval from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board later Thursday for new efforts to lobby for rail safety funds, adding that state and federal government needs to free up money for transportation.
“California’s been shortchanged here,” he said.
Wednesday’s crash killed 11 people and injured 180 after a distraught motorist parked his SUV on the tracks intending to commit suicide, then fled from the vehicle as the train approached.
Some veteran railroad officials speculate that if a locomotive had led the train — instead of the lighter passenger car, called a cab car — it could have thrown the Jeep Grand Cherokee off the tracks and prevented the derailment.
“Locomotives tend to push objects aside. Cab cars tend to run over,” said Tim Smith, state chairman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.
“If there had been a locomotive at the front of the Metrolink, there’s a good chance that the loss of life and injuries would not have been as great as with the cab car.”
Over the last decade, the union has waged a campaign against leading the train with a passenger cab, which they say puts engineers and passengers at risk. Following two fatal collisions in 1996, the Federal Railroad Administration issued an emergency order that required commuter service providers to look at the issue.
The FRA also called for providers to consider limiting front-car passengers when there is space elsewhere in the train.