MOORPARK : Train Hits Stolen Car Left on Tracks

A Metrolink train bound for Los Angeles struck an abandoned car west of Moorpark near a California 118 crossing, delaying train traffic for two hours early Thursday morning while workers cleared the track.

No one was injured in the 5:55 a.m. accident, and passengers were taken to the Simi Valley Metrolink to catch a connecting train after being transferred to buses, Metrolink spokesman Francisco Oaxaca said.

Using buses to shuttle passengers from stations west of the accident, Metrolink was able to keep regularly scheduled trips, Oaxaca said. But there were some delays of up to half an hour, he said.

Later Thursday, sheriff’s officials announced that three juveniles were arrested in the car theft. The juveniles admitted that they had watched the car’s destruction from a nearby orange grove, officials said.

The vehicle was stolen from Oxnard, a California Highway Patrol spokesman said. The incident follows another accident at the rail crossing two months ago. In that incident an elderly woman miraculously escaped serious injury after being broadsided by an Amtrak train when she stopped her car on the tracks.

The last Metrolink accident in Ventura County was last May 27 when a man was struck and killed by a train in Simi Valley while trying to pull his dog from the tracks, Oaxaca said.