Panel Urged to Host Rail-Safety Summit
Responding to the Seacliff train derailment, the Ventura County Transportation Commission today will consider sponsoring a six-county rail-safety summit.
Commissioner Jim Dantona is requesting that the five-member panel invite the transportation commissions of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties to participate in a summit this fall.
Representatives of the Southern Transportation Co., the state Public Utilities Commission, the California Department of Transportation, the California Highway Patrol and the Ventura County Fire Department would also be invited, Dantona said.
“We have some major rail-safety problems,” he said. “And the whole point of the summit is to bring together transportation experts to put together a laundry list of things that have to be done” to avoid another serious train accident.
More than 400 gallons of the poisonous chemical hydrazine were spilled in the July 28 derailment. Dozens of nearby residents were forced to evacuate their homes, and a 10-mile stretch of the Ventura Freeway was shut down for four days.
Dantona said that if all goes well, the rail summit could take place on Oct. 30 in Simi Valley.
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