(The following article by Lisa Mascaro was posted on the Los Angeles Daily News website on March 7.)
LOS ANGELES — Stationary tables on Metrolink trains pose the risk of severe injury to passengers in a crash, federal rail officials say, and they are working to design work surfaces that would “give” on impact.
Federal investigators say two passengers died of traumatic injuries likely suffered when they hit the tables during a 2002 Metrolink crash in Placentia. And the lawyer for a former Santa Clarita woman left paralyzed during a 2003 wreck in Burbank blames the workstation for her injuries.
The safety issue came into the spotlight again this past January, when 11 passengers were killed and nearly 200 injured in a freak crash involving two Metrolink trains in Glendale.
“Current workstation tables pose a severe injury risk to the upper abdominal region,” researchers wrote after conducting safety tests for the Federal Railroad Administration. “Such injuries have been witnessed in real-world accidents, such as the April 2002 collision in Placentia.”
Realizing the risk to passengers, federal authorities are working to design a table with edges that would crush on impact, but say it could take years to get the necessary approvals.
Metrolink is working separately on a design with a more flexible wall attachment and hopes to have a model that could be installed on its trains within six months — if the money can be found.
“We’re looking to see if some modifications can be made, some refinements could be made to our system,” said Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell. “We would like to be able to allow our customers to have this convenience, if it’s at all possible.”
But those injured by the tables say more should be done.
Jennifer Kilpatrick, formerly of Santa Clarita, has filed suit claiming the she suffered permanent spinal cord damage on Jan. 6, 2003, because of the design of the workstation.
“We feel that the rigidity, the lack of give of the table, its placement, contributed to her injuries,” said her attorney, Tom Kearney, who also is representing 20 other plaintiffs in the Burbank crash.
“I just think the location of the table was a real problem and something should have been done,” he said. “I think everyone was on notice after the Placentia crash that there was a problem with these tables.”
Each 160-passenger Metrolink train has up to 10 tables — rectangular platforms attached to the wall that provide a coveted workstation for commuters.
Following the Placentia collision — caused when a Metrolink train was hit head-on by a freight train — the National Transportation Safety Board said the two passenger fatalities and “many” of the serious injuries “likely resulted from impact with the workstation table edges.”
Last year, the Federal Railroad Administration conducted crash tests near Pueblo, Colo., where they ran a two-car train into a wall. Researchers released a report in January saying “the workstation table seating arrangement must be redesigned to reduce the injury risk to the occupants.”
Even as it scrambles to redesign worktables for its current commuter trains, Metrolink also wants all the rail cars it expects to buy in the next two years to have upgraded worktables.
“We’ve also offered up the FRA to use our new rail-car procurement to demonstrate new technologies,” said Tyrrell, the Metrolink spokeswoman. “We’re trying to see if we can stimulate the use of new technologies systemwide.”
Bombardier Transportation in North America, the manufacturer of Metrolink’s current fleet, said it has made some changes in its table design and is closely monitoring federal research.
Advocates for rail passengers say tables have only recently emerged as a problem.
“The table issue is something that’s brand new in this past decade … the rise of the computer era and bringing laptops on board,” said Arthur Lloyd, who helped found the National Association of Rail Passengers.
“I don’t think we’re going to be able to remove all of them because then the passengers will be mad at us.”
Others say the issue could be addressed simply by installing seat belts on the trains.
“Seat belts are a proven safety measure — I don’t think anyone disputes that anymore,” said Richard Silver, executive director of Rail Passenger Association of California, which represents 2,500 members.
“It’s not so much the worktables created a problem, but of putting seat belts on the train,” he said. “If people were seat belted in, it would minimize that problem. We have it on airplanes and automobiles … I think that’s just an area we need to go.”
Silver estimates the cost of new seat belts on the trains would be about $50 a seat.
But federal and local train officials remain skeptical of seat belts, noting that repair and maintenance costs also would have to be factored in.
They also say that seat belts are unnecessary because trains don’t face the threat of collisions and turbulence as vehicles and airplanes do.
“The FRA has not yet definitively determined whether seat belts would ensure improved occupant protection in all cases and under all conditions,” agency spokesman Warren Flatau wrote in an e-mail.
But Scott Barrella, a commuter aboard the southbound Metrolink train involved in the Jan. 26 crash in Glendale, said after experiencing the searing crash and seeing the devastating injuries among his fellow passengers, he now makes sure he always faces the rear of the train — especially when seated at a workstation.
And he thinks bigger safety issues — like seat belts and putting a locomotive instead of a cab car at the front of the train — need to be addressed.
“A breakaway table is not the solution. The solution is a seat belt. The solution is a train in the front that plows through things,” said Barrella, a corporate manager who also teaches business classes at California State University, Northridge. “They completely missed the reality of the situation.”