By Tamara Audi And Andy Pasztor
LOS ANGELES--The driver of a truck involved in a train crash
north of Los Angeles on Tuesday has been arrested on suspicion of a
felony hit-and-run, according to police officials in Oxnard, where
the crash occurred.
A commuter-rail train struck the tractor-trailer truck sitting
on the tracks around 5:45 a.m. Tuesday in Southern California's
Ventura County, injuring more than 20. The impact engulfed the
truck in flames, and four cars of the Metrolink train derailed,
three of them sliding on their sides.
The 54-year-old driver accidentally had driven his truck onto
the tracks, became stuck, and then fled the scene, police said at a
news conference late Tuesday afternoon.
Oxnard Police identified the driver of the truck as Jose
Alejandro Sanchez Ramirez of Yuma, Ariz. A police spokesman said
Mr. Ramirez has a valid commercial drivers' license. He pulled onto
the tracks driving a 2005 F-450 truck with a trailer in tow, police
said.
Ventura County officials said Tuesday that of the 28 injured and
taken to area hospitals, 20 have been released. Another eight
patients remain hospitalized, including four in intensive care. Two
additional passengers who didn't seek hospital treatment at the
scene on Tuesday later showed up at area hospitals for treatment,
emergency officials said.
Authorities said some victims suffered serious head injuries and
broken limbs.
Service on two Amtrak lines running along the California coast
were disrupted for the day, train officials said.
The collision occurred in the city of Oxnard as the train headed
toward Los Angeles, about 65 miles away.
As the commuter train carrying 50 people and crew sped along the
coast in the predawn dark, the truck driver made a right turn onto
the tracks at the rail crossing, police said.
The train crew saw the truck on the tracks and was able to slow
down significantly before impact, said officials with Metrolink,
which operates Southern California's commuter rail system.
Oxnard Assistant Police Chief Jason Benites said the driver was
found walking unharmed and "very unsettled" about a mile from the
crash.
Metrolink spokesman Scott Johnson said the train cars didn't
crumple in the crash because of new technology that Metrolink has
invested in that disperses impact energy.
The crash is the second at that crossing, according to Oxnard
Mayor Tim Flynn. Last year, two people in a vehicle died when a
train hit a car at the crossing. Mr. Flynn said the city was
already considering constructing a bridge at the spot.
Union Pacific, which owns the rails, maintains the crossing arm
and lights at the site. According to a Union Pacific spokesman, the
crossing lights and gate were working before the crash. It is
unclear if they were functioning properly at the time of the
crash--a question that federal investigators will examine.
The National Transportation Safety Board has dispatched a "go
team"--composed of specialists in the fields related to the
accident--to the scene. Usually, the NTSB will first obtain the
"black-box" recorder from the train. The officials also typically
administer drug and alcohol tests to the engineer and driver and
seek phone records, to see if calling or texting was involved.
In the past few years, train accidents and derailments have
become a larger focus of the safety board's efforts. Crashes
involving both passenger trains and freight trains, particularly
those transporting oil, have prompted a variety of safety
recommendations. Including the Ventura crash, four of the NTSB's
nine current major investigations involve rail accidents.
The collision comes on the heels of a Feb. 3 train-SUV collision
in Valhalla, N.Y., in which five Metro-North Railroad passengers
and the driver of the vehicle were killed. The NTSB's preliminary
report on that crash, which was released Monday, didn't identify a
probable cause of the crash, nor did it address issues such as why
the sport-utility vehicle wound up on the railroad tracks or how
safety at crossings might be improved. The final results of the
investigation could take a year or more.
A Metrolink commuter train was involved in a major crash outside
L.A. in 2008, when it struck another train and killed 25
people.
That accident, attributed to an engineer failing to respond to a
stop signal while he was texting, prompted a nationwide debate over
enhanced anticollision safeguards designed to automatically apply a
train's brakes in such circumstances. Metrolink was the first major
commuter line in the U.S. to install so-called positive train
control systems, which also detect excessive speeds, though they
aren't intended to deal with the type of train-vehicle accident
that occurred Tuesday.
Deborah Hersman, the safety board's former chairman, said on CNN
that California train lines "lead the nation when it comes to
fatalities at grade crossings." She said that nationwide, about 120
fatalities occur each year at crossings where tracks and roadways
intersect at the same level.
Write to Tamara Audi at tammy.audi@wsj.com and Andy Pasztor at
andy.pasztor@wsj.com
Access Investor Kit for Union Pacific Corp.
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US9078181081
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires