(The following story appeared at railwayage.com on December 4, 2008)
CHATSWORTH, Ca – The visibility of a red signal may be a factor in the Sept. 12 train collision in Chatsworth, Calif., involving a Metrolink passenger train and a Union Pacific freight train. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board have discovered that the red signal in question may not have been as clearly visible as the green and yellow displays.
“We did some signal inspections. Can’t hardly see the red,” one investigator reportedly told another before a meeting Sept. 15, three days after the crash.
Still unclear is how much of a factor such visibility contributed to the crash, which killed 25 and injured 135, and spurred congressional action to mandate Positive Train Control on U.S. routes sharing freight and passenger traffic by 2015. NTSB officials note that train collisions normally have more than one cause, and cell phone records indicate that the Metrolink engineer was using his cell phone just before the accident occurred.
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