Signal Urged After Fatal Crash at Train Crossing : Moorpark: A rancher whose three employees were killed on unguarded tracks Friday calls for Amtrak to install warning equipment at the site.

A Somis rancher who employed three men killed by an Amtrak train at a poorly marked railroad crossing called Saturday for authorities to improve warning signals where the tragedy took place.

“It’s really unfortunate that the railroad can’t see its way clear to putting up some sort of warning signal there,” said Craig Underwood, who runs Underwood Ranch on leased land just west of Moorpark. “It doesn’t have to be a crossing arm or a huge process,” he said. “Just something to let you know the train’s coming.”

Underwood said the only warning now posted at the crossing is a stationary sign urging drivers to use caution and look for trains.

Three of Underwood’s employees were killed and another seriously injured Friday evening when the van they were driving out of the fields was struck by an eastbound Amtrak train traveling at about 65 m.p.h., authorities said.

The driver of the van, Gabriel Silva, 27, and passengers Rodolfo Pantoja Chavez, 29, and Ignacio Arroyo Reyes, 22, were pronounced dead at the scene. A fourth man, Antonio Chavez, 28, survived the accident and was taken to Pleasant Valley Hospital, where he was listed in fair condition Saturday. All of the men were from Oxnard.

Underwood said Silva had worked for him about five years and was the foreman of the 11-man crew that picks carrots in the fields just south of the railroad tracks. “He was a really good man,” he said.

The crew arrived about 7 a.m. Friday and had just finished work when the crash occurred about a quarter-mile east of Balcom Canyon Road, he said.

Family members said Silva and his wife, Celina, had moved into a new rental house with their two young children earlier this month.

“He was a nice person; he could get along with anybody,” said Claudia Pineda, Silva’s sister-in-law.

Pineda said the family has not been informed about what led to the fatal collision. “We don’t know what went went wrong. We don’t know what happened.”

Rodolfo Chavez lived with his uncle and Reyes lived with his brother, according to friends and relatives.

Arrangements for the deceased were being handled by Garcia Mortuary in Oxnard.

California Highway Patrol investigators said after the 4:35 p.m. crash that Silva had driven directly into the path of the oncoming train for an unknown reason when the seven-car train running from Santa Barbara to San Diego broadsided his yellow 1973 Dodge van. Reyes and Antonio Chavez were ejected shortly after the collision, investigators said, while Silva and Rodolfo Chavez were trapped in the front of the twisted van and pushed about 1,500 feet down the tracks.

Amtrak engineer Joseph Bell, 42, told investigators that he sounded his horn as he approached the crossing.

Amtrak officials did not return phone calls Saturday.

Underwood said that the elevation of the crossing makes it difficult to see oncoming southbound trains.

“When you’re approaching that crossing, the trains come out of an area that’s fairly low and they can come up very fast,” he said. “They can surprise you.”