This article is about the 2008 Metrolink train collision in Los Angeles, for the 1887 train collision at Great Chatsworth, Illinois, see 1887 Great Chatsworth train wreck.
The 2008 Chatsworth train collision occurred at 16:22 PDT (23:22 UTC) on Friday September 12, 2008, when a Union Pacific freight train and a Metrolink commuter train collided head-on in the Chatsworth district of Los Angeles, California, in the United States. The scene of the accident was a curved section of single track on the Metrolink Ventura County Line just east of Stoney Point.
Before the collision, the Metrolink train may have run through a red signal before entering a section of single track where the opposing freight train had been given the right of way by the train dispatcher. The Metrolink train's engineer was near the end of a work week of long split shifts, making fatigue a subject of the investigation, along with distraction from text messages he was sending while on duty. The accident remains under investigation; meanwhile the basic circumstances have been released to the public, but the official report determining probable cause is expected to take up to a year to complete.
This mass casualty event brought a massive emergency response by both the city and county of Los Angeles, but the nature and extent of physical trauma taxed the available resources. With 25 deaths, this became the deadliest accident in Metrolink's history. Many survivors remained hospitalized for an extended period. Lawyers quickly began filing claims against Metrolink, and in total, they are expected to exceed a US$200 million liability limit set in 1997, portending the first legal challenges to that law. Issues surrounding this accident have also initiated and reinvigorated public debate on a range of topics including public relations, safety, and emergency management, which has also resulted in regulatory and legislative actions.
Collision
Metrolink commuter train 111, consisting of a 250,000-pound (113,000 kg) EMD F59PH locomotive (SCAX 855) pulling three Bombardier BiLevel Coaches, departed Union Station in downtown Los Angeles at 15:35 PDT (22:35 UTC) heading westbound to Moorpark in suburban Ventura County. Approximately 40 minutes later, it departed the Chatsworth station with 222 people aboard, and had traveled approximately 1.25 miles (2 km) when it collided head-on with an eastbound Union Pacific local freight train. The freight train was led by two SD70ACe locomotives, UP 8485 and 8491, weighing more than 500,000 pounds (227,000 kg) each. The Metrolink locomotive telescoped into the passenger compartment of the first passenger car and caught fire. All three locomotives, the leading Metrolink passenger car and seven freight cars, were derailed, and both lead locomotives and the passenger car fell over.
The collision occurred after the 46-year-old Metrolink passenger train engineer Robert M. Sanchez apparently failed to obey a red, stop signal that indicated it was not safe to proceed into the single track section. The train dispatcher's computer at a remote control center in Pomona did not display a warning prior to the accident according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Metrolink initially reported that the dispatcher tried in vain to contact the train crew to warn them; but the NTSB contradicted this report, saying the dispatcher noticed a problem only after the accident, and was notified by the passenger train's conductor first.
Both trains were moving toward each other at the time of the collision. At least one passenger on the Metrolink train reported seeing the freight train moments before impact, coming around the curve. The conductor of the passenger train, who was in the rear car and was injured in the accident, estimated that his train was traveling at 40 miles per hour (64 km/h) before it suddenly came to a dead stop after the collision. The NTSB reported that it was traveling at 42 miles per hour (68 km/h). The freight was traveling at approximately the same speed after its engineer triggered the emergency air brake only two seconds before impact, while the Metrolink engineer never applied the brakes on his train.
Location
The accident occurred after the freight train emerged from the 500-foot-long (150-meter-long) tunnel #28, just south of California State Route 118 near the intersection of Heather Lee Lane and Andora Avenue near Chatsworth Hills Academy. The accident was in Chatsworth, a neighborhood of Los Angeles located at the western edge of the San Fernando Valley. The trains collided on the Metrolink Ventura County Line, part of the Montalvo Cutoff, opened by the Southern Pacific Company on March 20, 1904, to improve the alignment of its Coast Line. Metrolink has operated the line since purchasing it in the 1990s from Southern Pacific (now owned by Union Pacific), which retained trackage rights for freight service.
Railroad physical characteristics
Both trains were on the same section of single track that runs between the Chatsworth station (which is double tracked) through the Santa Susana Pass. The line returns to double track again as it enters the Simi Valley. Three tunnels under the pass are only wide enough to support a single track, and it would be very costly to widen them. This single track section carries 24 passenger trains and 12 freight trains each day.
The line's railway signaling system is designed to ensure that trains wait on the double track section while a train is proceeding in the other direction on the single track. The signal system was upgraded in the 1990s to support Metrolink commuter rail services, and Richard Stanger, the executive director of Metrolink in its early years of 1991 to 1998, said the system had functioned without trouble in the past. The Metrolink train would normally wait in the Chatsworth station for the daily Union Pacific freight train to pass before proceeding, unless the freight train was already waiting for it at Chatsworth.
Timeline
The events on September 12, 2008 leading up to the collision (all times local):
Aftermath
Emergency response
The Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) originally dispatched a single engine company with a four person crew for a "possible physical rescue" at a residential address near the scene in response to a 9-1-1 emergency call from the home. The crew arrived at the address four minutes later, just before 16:30 PDT and accessed the scene by cutting through the backyard fence. Upon arrival, the captain on the scene immediately called for an additional five ambulances, then 30 fire engines, and after reaching the wreck he called for every heavy search and rescue unit in the city. Hundreds of emergency workers were eventually involved in the rescue and recovery efforts, including 250 firefighters.
The event was operationally identified as the "Chatsworth Incident" and was reclassified as a "mass casualty incident." All six of LAFD's air ambulances were mobilized, along with six additional helicopters from the Los Angeles County Fire Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The helicopters were requested under a mutual aid arrangement. A review of the emergency response and the on-site and hospital care was initiated by the Los Angeles County Supervisor immediately after the event, and is expected to take 90 days to complete.
Casualties
As of September 27, 2008 ( 2008 -09-27 ) , 25 people have died, including two victims who had died at hospitals in the days following the crash. This became the deadliest railway accident in Metrolink's history, and the worst in the United States since the Big Bayou Canot train disaster in 1993.
A total of 135 others were reported injured, 46 of them critically, with 85 of the injured transported to 13 hospitals and two transported themselves. Air ambulance helicopters medevaced 40 patients. LAFD Captain Steve Ruda reported that the high number of critically injured passengers taxed the area's emergency response capabilities, and patients were distributed to all 12 trauma centers in Los Angeles County. Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills treated 17 patients, more than any other hospital.
Captain Ruda said his firefighters had never seen such carnage. Austin Walbridge, a train passenger, told a TV news reporter that the interior of the train was "bloody, a mess. Just a disaster. It was horrible." Emergency responders described the victims as having crush type injuries. Dr. Amal K. Obaid, a trauma surgeon who practices at USC University Hospital where several victims were treated, described their injuries in more detail, "They have head injuries, multiple facial fractures, chest trauma, collapsed lungs, rib fractures, pelvic fractures, leg and arm fractures, cuts in the skin and soft tissue. Some have blood in the brain."
The Los Angeles County Coroner set up an air-conditioned tent that functioned as a temporary morgue at the site. One off-duty Los Angeles Police Department officer was among the confirmed deaths, as was the Metrolink train's engineer, an employee of Veolia Transportation, a contracted
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