Derailment Stalls Metrolink Service

A freight train derailment in Yorba Linda on Tuesday disrupted Metrolink service between Orange and Riverside counties, leaving at least 2,000 commuters stranded and scrambling to make it to work, school and other destinations.

The accident occurred about 4:30 a.m. in northern Orange County near the Green River Golf Club when a Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway freight car backed up and struck equipment, said Lena Kent, a spokeswoman for the railroad.

No injuries were reported.

The crash blocked tracks shared with Metrolink, prompting the agency to cancel Inland Empire-Orange County and 91 Line service, which links Riverside and Los Angeles, said Metrolink spokesman Francisco Oaxaca.

Once the four empty flat-bed cars were removed from the tracks, Metrolink service resumed in the afternoon with some delays. Regular service is expected to be completely restored this morning.

But the resumption of service was no consolation to the thousands who waited for trains that didn’t arrive Tuesday morning.

Wayne Arroyo of Lake Elsinore was due in traffic court in Los Angeles at 9 a.m., so he had left his home at 5 a.m. to catch a train at the North Main Corona station.

After the service was canceled, he was told to take a bus, provided by Metrolink, to Riverside, then board another to San Bernardino and from there take a train to Los Angeles. At 9:15 a.m. he was still at the Riverside Downtown Metrolink station.

“I was frustrated, yeah,” Arroyo said. “If I had a car, I’d be on my way.”

James Williams’ 40-minute trip from his printing job in Fullerton to his home in Hemet turned into a 2 1/2-hour ordeal. He normally takes a bus from Hemet to Riverside, and from the train station there, takes the train to Fullerton.

Earlier that morning, Williams, 26, said he wondered, how he was going to get home.

After more than an hour of waiting at the Fullerton train station for a way to get to Riverside, a bus provided by Metrolink took him to Riverside, from where he would catch his regular bus ride home.

“Getting here was the hard part,” he said at the Riverside train station.

Gloria Vasquez of Perris resigned herself to missing part of her 1 p.m. drawing class at Brooks College in Long Beach. At 9:45 a.m., Vasquez learned the next train would leave the Riverside station at 2 p.m.

“Just sit here and wait is all I really can do,” said Vasquez, 21.

Brendan McCarthy, a 40-year-old electrician from Riverside, was at the Fullerton train depot looking tan and relaxed after a weeklong vacation in Solana Beach in San Diego County.

He had taken an Amtrak train from Oceanside to Fullerton, where he was to board a Metrolink train home.

Instead, about 10 a.m. he was sitting beneath a tree with his luggage.

“By this time, I should have been back in Riverside,” McCarthy said. “But I’m on vacation, so it isn’t that bad.”