Push to Keep Public to Own Side of Tracks

To Juan Lopez, the rock-strewn rail bed looked like the ideal shortcut through Santa Ana. For others, the gleaming Metrolink rails looked like the perfect place to eat lunch or smoke pot.

Or at least that’s how it looked before the trainload of police rolled up.

As part of a statewide effort to combat railway fatalities, a task force of local police, Orange and Los Angeles county sheriffs deputies and federal rail officials chugged through Santa Ana on Tuesday, arresting and citing 15 people for trespassing and other crimes. Those who weren’t taken to jail immediately for drug possession and outstanding warrants were sent packing with fines of up to $250.

For Lopez, a 34-year-old homeless man, the message came through loud and clear. “No mas (No more),” Lopez told police. “No mas.”

Tuesday’s sweep was one of a number planned throughout the state, which authorities say has the nation’s worst record for pedestrian fatalities along railroad tracks. The crackdown was coordinated by law enforcement officials, Metrolink, Amtrak, Union Pacific Railroad and the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co.

Orange County has yet to record a pedestrian fatality this calendar year, but logged six last year.

Authorities say trespassers are often deceived by the speed and relative lack of noise made by commuter trains that whisk along the Orange County rail corridors. The trains, which travel at more than 75 mph and can weigh up to 450 tons, leave the reckless with little time to react.

“We found two guys who were actually sitting on the railroad tracks eating lunch,” said J.C. Pena, an Orange County Sheriff’s deputy who patrols the railways in plainclothes. “Ten seconds after we pulled them off the tracks, a train came zipping up behind.”

Although some might consider that a close call, Pena said the lunchers were unimpressed. “They acted like it was no big deal to them,” Pena said. “We see that every day.”

If those trespassers who were rounded up Tuesday failed to understand the danger of the tracks, they were sometimes dumbfounded by the attention they received for using them.

As officers patrolled the Metrolink rail line on foot, more than a dozen monitored the tracks from inside a two-car passenger train as it rolled forward and backward over a four-mile route surrounding the Santa Ana Metrolink Station. A crowd of reporters and photographers was invited along to publicize the event.

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When Lopez was caught loping along the tracks behind a row of auto-parts and scrap-metal dealerships, the patrol train stopped and its occupants piled out.

As plainclothes officers frisked and questioned Lopez, the media crowded around with cameras, microphones and note pads. Lopez appeared startled at the sudden attention.

“He says he always walks along here because it’s a shortcut,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Wayne Byerley as he searched the contents of a green backpack. “It may be the shortest route, but it’s also the most dangerous.”