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More than 30 passengers were injured, at least four seriously, when a double decker MetroLink commuter train crashed into a truck at a crossing in Oxnard, California, during the morning rush hour Feb. 24. Five cars derailed, closing the tracks.
The truck was destroyed, engulfed in flames. Area authorities say the truck stalled on the tracks and the driver left, disoriented. He was later arrested. Farmworkers came out of nearby strawberry fields to help rescue passengers. The crash comes just three weeks after a commuter train in Westchester County, New York, smashed into a car on the tracks, killing six and injuring more than a dozen. MetroLink has a long history of deadly crashes and disregard for safety. In 2008, a commuter train plowed into a Union Pacific freight train in Chatsworth, California, killing 25 and injuring 135. Another commuter train in Glendale hit a truck parked on the tracks in 2005. The Oxnard train was running with the engine in the back, a common practice that saves the bosses time and money. However, it increases the chance of derailment in a collision. “I think we see way too many of these grade cross crashes across the U.S.,” Deborah Hersman, former chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, told the press after the crash. While collisions near big cities get a lot of publicity, deaths and injuries from crashes at crossings are a fact of life in rural farming areas. |
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| — JOHN STUDER |