Sad news in California

[Snoq. Pass RR]

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A commuter train engineer who ran a stop signal was blamed Saturday for the nation's deadliest rail disaster in 15 years, a wreck that killed 25 people and left such a mass of smoldering, twisted metal that it took nearly a day to recover all the bodies.

A preliminary investigation found that "it was a Metrolink engineer that failed to stop at a red signal and that was the probable cause" of Friday's collision with a freight train in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said. She said she believes the engineer, whose name was not released, is dead.

Here is the whole article:

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20080914/D9365K300.html

 

[ttrigg]

There are several more in hospitial in serious condition.  Let's all say a prayer for their recovery.  KFI radio (live feed at kfi640 dot com) reports that the data recorders from both engines have been recovered, including the video recorder from the freight.

[Snoq. Pass RR]

Photo by David McNew/Getty Images

The cause of the crash is still unknown, but investigaters now believe that the engineer was texting before the crash.

[vsmith]

Their not sure about the texting, best to wait and see what unfolds, 7 pages, so far, of discussion on the Trains.com forum, lot of experienced voices:

http://cs.trains.com/forums/1532043/ShowPost.aspx