School Officials Say Train-Track Deaths Prove Need for Barrier

San Fernando Middle School officials said Saturday that the death of a student killed by a commuter train underscores the need to quickly build a proposed, stronger barrier between the campus and nearby railroad tracks.

Police are investigating the possibility that Flora Carpio, 15, a ninth-grader at the school, and her boyfriend, Marc Charles Ballin, 16, intentionally killed themselves Friday by standing in the train’s path.

But school officials said their deaths and a recent rash of Metrolink fatal accidents emphasize the danger the tracks pose to the 2,100-member student body. The middle school is the only campus along the 35-mile commuter line between Santa Clarita and Los Angeles.

“We’ve done assemblies and handed out literature about the dangers, and just Wednesday Metrolink officials met with the student council to come up with new ways to educate the children,” Principal Maria Reza said. “But it’s frustrating. Our students are still kids . . . and they’re naturally drawn to trains and tracks.”

The campus and the tracks are separated only by a 12-foot-high chain-link fence that students routinely crawl under to get to school faster, Reza said. Many take an even bigger risk by walking down the center of the tracks instead of alongside them on the way to and from school to avoid stumbling on the rocky, gravel-strewn ground.

“Even if we repair the fence, there’s a new hole the next day,” she said.

A proposal to replace the existing fence with a wrought-iron one with vertical bars and a 10-foot-deep, concrete-lined trench has been approved by the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, Reza said.

But no construction schedule has been set, she said.

A Metrolink spokesman said Saturday that transportation officials are considering speeding up their fence-building program in light of the fatalities that have plagued the system, including the deaths of Flora and Marc. Seven people have died--five in the same seven-mile stretch of track--since service began in October.

“I am confident that we will be investigating this further and perhaps accelerating the project,” said Metrolink spokesman Peter Hidalgo.

But Hidalgo pointed out that a fence probably would not have prevented the incident involving Flora and Marc’s deaths, which took place about an eighth of a mile north of the school near the intersection of San Fernando Road, Hubbard and Truman streets about 8:30 a.m.

Police suspect the teen-agers may have committed suicide because the train horn was sounded for at least 45 seconds before the couple were struck.

“It’s very, very tragic,” Reza said.