2 Toddlers Killed by Train After Slipping Out of Home

They were put down for their morning nap Tuesday, but after their mother apparently dozed off, the two precocious toddlers slipped out of their apartment and set off to where the sisters had never dared go before--to where they would tragically die.

Three-year-old Alexes Elaine Robles and 22-month-old Deziree Andrea Soto, wearing only diapers, traipsed down the sidewalk more than 100 yards, down to the railroad track bed at the end of the street, where little stones just waited to be tossed around.

“They were walking--skipping--down the street, hand in hand, as playfully as could be,” said a neighbor, Roger Daly, who was heading the opposite way and had no idea the girls were headed for the tracks.

Then a Metrolink commuter train rounded the corner at between 40 mph and 50 mph. In a flood of adrenaline, the engineer pressed hard on his emergency horn. He set the emergency brakes. And he braced for the nightmare that train engineers fear most.

He saw the older girl try to pull her little sister off the tracks, but there was no time, Metrolink spokesmen said. The girls were killed instantly, their bodies tossed like rag dolls down the embankment.

Their mother, Jackie Robles, 21, was notified by neighbors who pounded on doors up and down the street, wondering whom the children belonged to.

She dissolved in grief, and 4 1/2 hours later was arrested by Upland police on suspicion of felony child endangerment. Authorities would not say if Fernando Robles, Jackie’s husband, was home at the time.

“My detectives were pretty specific, that the actions of the mother placed the children in danger,” said Upland Police Capt. Walter Ciszek. “And this was the ultimate danger.”

Ciszek would not elaborate on what the mother told investigators. “This doesn’t need any elaboration,” he said. “It’s a tragic accident. The person who had the ultimate responsibility for ensuring the safety of her children failed to do so.”

Prosecutors said they would not make a decision on whether to file charges until Thursday.

The two deaths brought to 14 the number of people killed this year on Metrolink’s 416 miles of track in Southern California. No single year has seen more people killed, said spokesman Peter Hidalgo--and never before has a child under the age of 7 been killed by a train.

“The tragedy in this instance is that innocent children were, in their minds, playing, and little did they know that it was a deadly stretch of railroad track,” Hidalgo said. “This incident could have been prevented.”

He said fencing is not placed along the track bed because the cost “is prohibitive.”

The train was slowing down for the Upland train station about a mile away, he said. Trains can travel up to 79 mph along the stretch, Hidalgo said.

“The engineer is himself a father,” Hidalgo said. “He was repeatedly reminded that he did everything he could, but it was still too much for him to bear.”

The Upland neighborhood is a quiet, suburban tract of stucco and wood one- and two-story apartment complexes, and the unfenced tracks are popular among children, residents say.

Those who know the family said Tuesday’s tragedy was all the more painful because Jackie Robles is a cautious and caring mother.

“We all watch each others’ children when they’re outside,” said Patricia Maniaci, who lives next door to the young family. “Kids are never allowed downstairs in the courtyard to play unless one of us--me or Jackie or Louise--is watching.

“She’s a wonderful mother, and I’d trust her to this moment with my own son,” Maniaci said.

On this day, Jackie Robles had put her three children--including a 2-month-old son--down for a nap, and apparently then fell asleep herself in front of the television, Maniaci and other neighbors said.

“My fiance heard the kids outside and when he looked outside a few minutes later, they were gone and he figured they were back inside,” she said.

At about that time, another neighbor, Daly, saw the two girls walking down the street. “It didn’t dawn on me who they were. They were in a good mood, having fun,” he said. “I figured they were heading to their home.”

Daly went inside to get some tools, then headed back down toward the tracks to do some work for another neighbor. By then he had lost sight of the girls and didn’t realize they were just a few yards away, up on the track bed that is six feet above the street level.

Another neighbor watched them for about a minute as they tossed rocks and giggled on the track bed. “I didn’t pay them no mind,” said James Maxie. “I figured their mom was up there somewhere, too.”

He went inside and came back out just as the train blasted its horn. Both he and Daly talked of the smell of something burning--apparently the train’s brakes--in the moments after the collision.

Maxie saw the collision. Daly only heard it, and ignored it at first until someone else noticed the girls’ bodies. Children are always putting things on the tracks for trains to hit, he said.

Within minutes, panicky neighbors ran up and down the street, pounding on doors to see whose children were missing.

“One of our friends came up here and saw Jackie, who had just come outside to look for the girls,” Maniaci said. “He said, ‘Jackie, I’m not sure how to tell you this, but two little kids were just killed.’

“She said, ‘Stop kidding with me.’ But then she saw the fire trucks and saw the babies’ doll on the front lawn, and realized they had gotten out.

“These were the most playful kids,” Maniaci said. “They were mischievous, outgoing, just adorable.”