Eleven days after a Metrolink commuter train collided head-on with a Union Pacific freight train in Chatsworth, killing 25 people and injuring 135, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., pressed rail officials in Washington for safety measures that could take effect immediately. KPCC’s Patricia Nazario reports.
“What are the interim steps?” Boxer asked at the legislative briefing.
In the room were National Transportation Safety Board member Kitty Higgins, Metrolink board Chairman Ron Roberts, a Union Pacific executive and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
Feinstein pressed for more crew members at the front of trains to watch for signals. “What’s wrong with that?” she asked.
Roberts said Metrolink executives began discussing that option in the days after the crash. “We’ve already thought about that,” he said, “…putting another engineer in each cab on the lines that are single track and share with freight railways.”
Three days after the crash, Metrolink’s board approved a second engineer in the cab as an extra set of eyes.
Since then: The crash led Congress to pass the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which required Positive Train Control, a GPS-based backup system designed to stop trains when crews make errors. Federal regulators announced at the end of 2020 that the technology was in place on all required U.S. rail lines. Metrolink later reached a $200 million settlement with victims’ families.
The Los Angeles Times remembers the 25 people killed in the Chatsworth crash.
This report is part of a series on the 2008 Metrolink crash. See the full series →
