Driver Dies When Train Plows Into Van in Irvine

An unidentified motorist died Wednesday when an Amtrak train struck the van he was driving, igniting into a ball of fire that continued burning after the train came to a stop behind an Irvine elementary school.

One of the estimated 140 passengers aboard the 15-car train, southbound at 88 mph to San Diego, suffered a minor back injury, officials said. The passengers included a school group from Santa Monica on a field trip to San Juan Capistrano. None of the youngsters was injured.

Rail service between Los Angeles and San Diego was disrupted for six hours after the 9:25 a.m. accident while officials investigated the scene and work crews removed the flattened van from the front of the train.

Investigators said other cars had stopped at the Harvard Avenue crossing to wait for the train to pass, and that they were trying to figure out why the driver of the van suddenly moved onto the tracks.

“We’re examining all the possibilities,” Irvine Police Lt. Sam Allevato said.

The Orange County coroner’s office said it likely would not publicly identify the victim until today.

Witnesses said the northbound van was stopped about 50 yards north of the grade-level crossing, then pulled a sudden U-turn to drive south in the northbound lane, skirting the crossing arm and driving in front of the train.

“I was on the other side waiting to cross, when I saw him stop right in the middle of the tracks,” said Jesus Solis, 30, who works for a company hired by Irvine to clean its streets.

With the whistling train about 60 feet away, Solis said, he saw the driver seem to freeze.

“It looked like he probably got nervous, like he was too scared to move,” Solis said.

Eileen Almagro, 36, of Irvine was out for a morning walk with her parents when she saw the van pull over under a tree. She said she noticed the van because the brake lights never went out, which she thought was odd if the driver was parking.

As the crossing arms dropped and several other vehicles stopped, she said, the van made a quick U-turn and drove toward the tracks. She lost sight of it behind the passing train.

“There was a big explosion, and the car was torn to pieces--the front wheel was rolling toward us,” Almagro said.

Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Scott Brown said the victim was found in the van, which was crushed, with its top half burned. Firefighters extinguished the flames when they arrived, he said.

The impact scattered debris along the tracks and left the van’s engine block less than 100 yards south of Harvard.

Allevato said the engineer was the only person in the train’s lead engine, and that he escaped without injury and brought the train--and the burning van--to a stop.

Passengers on the train said they barely felt the impact but smelled smoke, gasoline and burning rubber as the train ground to a halt about 1 1/2 miles south of the collision.

“There wasn’t, like, any big jolt,” said Jessica Hudson, 10, who was sitting with her schoolmates from Carlthorpe Elementary School in Santa Monica in the back half of the train. “We just smelled smoke. Nobody knew what happened.”

The students, accompanied by 14 adults, boarded the train at Los Angeles’ Union Station at 8:20 a.m. and were 20 minutes from their scheduled arrival at San Juan Capistrano when the collision occurred.

Officials let the school group leave the train, and they continued the field trip in four rented vans summoned by cell phone. The rest of the passengers were kept aboard. About 90 minutes after the accident, the back half of the train was disconnected and moved to Santa Ana, where the remaining passengers were let off to await the next southbound train, which didn’t leave until the tracks reopened about 3:30 p.m., Amtrak spokesman Dominick Albano said.

The lead train car was burned and damaged, but the tracks themselves were not affected, he said.

The remnants of the accident could be seen from the playground behind Greentree Elementary School, but students were kept in at recess and lunch. They were released for the day through the front doors only.

“The kids understood there was an accident outside, and that it wasn’t something they needed to see,” Principal Dianne Daugherty said.

Times staff writers Lisa Richardson and Roberto Manzano contributed to this report.