Woman Is 6th to Die on Stretch of Metrolink Train Tracks : Sylmar: Investigators say they believe Kay Jokel, 47, of Woodland Hills committed suicide.

A 47-year-old woman, leaving a note blaming family problems, apparently committed suicide Friday by kneeling in the path of a Metrolink train on the same nine-mile stretch of track between Sylmar and Sun Valley where there have been five other fatalities in the past four months.

Kay Jokel, whose last known address was in Woodland Hills, was struck by the train shortly before 5 p.m. near the 13600 block of San Fernando Road in Sylmar, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.

It was the eighth Metrolink fatality since the line began operating Oct. 26, authorities said.

As three police helicopters hovered overhead and the three-car train stood stalled on the tracks, officers examined Jokel’s silver Mazda sedan, which had Texas license plates, for clues to the apparent suicide.

On the front passenger seat lay a long note penned on three-holed notebook paper saying that she killed herself because she felt spurned and hated by the family she loved.

Officers refused to discuss the contents of the note but confirmed that the woman had knelt in front of the engine.

The train’s engineer told police that the woman ran to the tracks and knelt in front of the oncoming train, Officer Ralph Kempner said.

“She may have been out here earlier today walking along the tracks and planning it,” said Sgt. John Amott, noting that witnesses had seen her near the tracks across from a Department of Water and Power substation.

Despite the engineer’s attempts to avoid Jokel by slamming on the brakes, the 129-ton locomotive traveling 79 m.p.h. struck her and pushed her about 40 feet, officers said.

No one on the train--which was carrying 170 passengers--was hurt, they said.

Only 208 people committed suicide by jumping or lying before a moving object in the United States in 1988, the latest year for which figures are available, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

They comprised less than 1% of the 30,407 suicides that year.

Officials from several agencies, including Metrolink, the Los Angeles Police Department and the National Transportation Safety Board, were investigating Friday’s death.

Five other people have been killed on the same stretch of track in the northeastern San Fernando Valley, where the downtown-to-Santa Clarita Metrolink service runs, since the commuter train debuted in October.

Two San Fernando teen-agers--Marc Charles Ballin, 16, and Flora Carpio, 15--were killed March 5, prompting Metrolink officials to decide to spend more than $800,000 to put a chain-link fence along a two-mile stretch of track in Pacoima and Sylmar.

Such fences might not prevent suicides but could prevent accidents, said Joe Huerta, a man who was leaving his job at a factory near the rails in Sylmar when Friday’s death occurred.

“A lot of people come out of factories here and cross the tracks,” Huerta said. “Putting up fences with barbed wire might keep people out.”

The proposal tentatively calls for installing 60 “No Trespassing” signs, 3,000 yards of chain-link fencing, 1,000 yards of wrought-iron fencing and 16 gates.

Although work has not begun, the fencing and other improvements could be installed as early as April or May, Metrolink officials said.

Other fatalities along the line include:

* Apolinar Arellano, 32, of Sun Valley, who was struck and killed in February while sitting on the tracks near San Fernando Road and Sunland Boulevard in Sun Valley.

* Epifanio Ascencio Lopez, 31, of Pacoima, who died instantly after ignoring a flashing signal gate and stepping in front of a train in Pacoima in December.

* Jaime Farias, 37, of Los Angeles, who was driving a truck that was hit at an unmarked crossing in Pacoima on Nov. 25, the first Metrolink fatality.

Farias’ family filed a $5-million wrongful death claim that was rejected last week by the regional board governing Metrolink.

Two other deaths occurred on Metrolink’s Los Angeles-to-Moorpark line.

In January, Eric Pola, 23, of Encino was killed as he dashed across the tracks at Winnetka Avenue, north of Nordhoff Street in Chatsworth.

In December, Kurt Anderson, 34, of Simi Valley threw himself in front of a train on the Moorpark line near Los Angeles Avenue and Erringer Street in Simi Valley.

Times staff writer Jim Herron Zamora contributed to this story.