Family of Man Killed in Train Crash to Sue

Former USC and San Fernando High School football star Kevin Williams was substituting for another employee when he was killed this month in the fiery predawn crash of a Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train in the Cajon Pass, his mother said Monday.

“Kevin is a conductor,” Mary Williams said. “He was substituting as a brakeman. That was his night off. He went to work for someone else.”

Mary Williams spoke at a news conference in the Mid-Wilshire office of attorney Angela F. Wallace, who said she is preparing a lawsuit that will seek damages “in seven digits” from the railroad.

Wallace said the Williams family’s suit will allege that the train had faulty brakes, that the backup braking system was defective and that the railroad improperly handled hazardous materials.

Railroad officials could not be reached for comment Monday.

Mary Williams, who now lives in Navasota, Texas, about 70 miles northwest of Houston, said her son often had told the family that as a conductor, he was responsible for a train. She also said that he had called his girlfriend before the crash and told her that the brakes on the train were not working properly.

“I do believe that if Kevin had had control of that train that night, that train wouldn’t have moved,” she said. “I think the railroad should have held that train.”

Saying she holds the railroad responsible for her son’s death, she said he “had just told us that he was doing dangerous work. I didn’t realize how dangerous.”

The 49-car freight train hurtled off the tracks Feb. 1 on a curving stretch of the treacherous downhill grade through the Cajon Pass, killing the conductor, Gilbert Ortiz, 25, of Fullerton, and Williams, 38, and seriously injuring the engineer.

After the crash, the Federal Railroad Administration sharply criticized Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s safety procedures and issued an emergency order requiring trains traveling routes such as the one in the Cajon Pass to be equipped with extra braking devices.

The agency said a blocked air brake line may have contributed to the accident. A railroad company spokesman has said that the train’s engineer reported that the brakes failed.

The derailment prompted authorities to close a 20-mile stretch of Interstate 15 through the Cajon Pass near San Bernardino after a chemical reaction in an overturned tank car threatened to cause an explosion.

Mary Williams said Monday that she plans to urge her elected representatives in Texas to press for increased safety measures on railroads. Too many hazardous materials are being shipped by rail, she said. “There are too many accidents on trains.

“I would like something to be done for other mothers who will lose their sons if the railroad doesn’t correct whatever is going on,” she said.

Kevin Williams, the youngest of her four children, earned All-City honors at San Fernando High School in 1975, rushing for 1,402 yards and scoring 151 points.

At USC, Williams caught 25 touchdown passes from 1977 to 1980, still a school record. He was a seventh-round choice of the NFL’s New Orleans Saints in 1981, but he spent that season as a kickoff return specialist with the Baltimore Colts after the Saints released him. The Colts released him the following year, and Williams never caught a pass in the NFL.

“The chain is broken,” Mary Williams said Monday of the impact of her son’s death on their family. “One link is gone. That link cannot be replaced, no matter what.”