Woman Killed When Train, Car Collide

A 24-year-old Saticoy woman was killed Sunday afternoon when her car was struck by an Amtrak train near California 118.

Evelia Alonso was driving northbound on a private road about 4:20 p.m. when a westbound Amtrak train traveling at 70 mph slammed into her car, cutting it in two and sending both pieces tumbling down an embankment.

The railroad crossing, which is marked with a stop sign instead of retractable safety gates, is near California 118 and La Cumbre Road.

Alonso was thrown about 20 feet from the vehicle, said California Highway Patrol Sgt. Mike Cooper.

The train’s engineer told officials the car failed to stop at the stop sign. The engineer sounded the train’s horn four times, but was unable to avoid hitting the car, Cooper said.

Alonso was dead when Ventura County Fire Department and California Highway Patrol officers arrived on the scene.

None of the train’s 150 passengers was injured, Cooper said. But the Amtrak was delayed for several hours while officials assessed the damage to the locomotive. The train sustained moderate damage to its engine, Cooper said.

An Amtrak representative said the train originated in San Diego and was headed for San Luis Obispo. No other trains were delayed because of the accident, the representative said.

The train makes Ventura County stops in Simi Valley, Oxnard and Ventura, Amtrak representatives said.

Alonso had left a family party at a nearby house in the 6600 block Los Angeles Avenue and had driven only a few hundred feet up a long private drive before she was struck by the train.

Manuel Duren, 15, who lives at the house and was an acquaintance of Alonso, said she stayed for about an hour and had not been drinking.

Aurora Ordaz, who also lives at the residence, said she wants officials to install mechanical gates at the crossing. School buses regularly cross the intersection, and Sunday’s accident was the second fatal accident at the railroad crossing that she knew of in the seven years her family has lived at the house, she said.