Surge in Urban Train Traffic Brings More Deadly Accidents

With more people than ever riding trains in California, rail experts are searching for ways to improve safety and reduce the number of rail fatalities, which now lead the nation.

Southern Californians are warming slowly to a new era of mass transportation, slightly loosening their grip on the automobile.

Commuter trains serving six counties chug out of downtown Los Angeles each day, with operators saying they can fill rail cars as fast as they can be bought. Whether it is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s light-rail trolleys or the trains operated by Amtrak and Metrolink, ridership is up. Way up.

The move out of cars and into rail is the stuff that warms the hearts of transportation planners. But combined with burgeoning freight train service around Southern California, the rail renaissance also presents new challenges and potential dangers for a public largely unaccustomed to trains.

After decades of decline, the number of accidents and deaths on California’s rails has risen to levels that safety experts consider unacceptable, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.

Even though there are more train accidents in four states--Texas, Illinois, Indiana and Louisiana--the rail agency’s most recent data reveal that California’s accidents are far more likely to be deadly.

California led the nation in railroad deaths each year from 1997 through 2000. Those numbers reflect heavy rail, such as Amtrak, Metrolink and Caltrain in the north, but do not include light-rail systems, such as the MTA’s Blue Line.

While some regulators sound a note for increasing caution, others say casualties have been relatively low considering the massive expansion of rail traffic.

Vahak Petrossian, who heads a railroad crossing project for the California Public Utilities Commission, says that comparisons with other states can be misleading because of California’s population, the number of trains, and the enormous number of intersections where railroad tracks cross streets and highways--some 11,000.

Measured against rail traffic that expanded 50% during the 1990s, Petrossian said, the number of accidents and deaths went down 32% for every million train miles traveled.

In a report on the 134 rail-related California fatalities during 1999, the last year for which a PUC analysis is available, state safety regulators attributed nearly all the deaths to pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers who ignored warning signs at crossings.

But some railroad officials say they are concerned, and not able to adequately explain, why the number of deaths along California’s rail lines has increased more rapidly than the number of accidents.

“The numbers look bleak,” said Eric Jacobsen, state coordinator of Operation Lifesaver, a nonprofit national rail safety program. “We are watching the numbers [of deaths and injuries] come up and we are concerned. We just have a humongous number of trains out there.”

Engineers and train operators tell of speeding through an increasingly crowded and complex web of urban obstacles, from motorists and pedestrians who ignore flashing warning lights to crowded city streets pressed close by the tracks.

Peering down from an Amtrak locomotive cab on a recent commuter run, one can clearly see many of the potential problems confronting trains. From Union Station to Orange County, Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner passenger train shares tracks with Burlington Northern, Santa Fe and Union Pacific freight trains and Metrolink commuter trains.

Along the route is one of the state’s most dangerous intersections, at Rosecrans and Marquardt avenues in Santa Fe Springs, where there have been 13 collisions between trains and vehicles since 1983.

Not long out of Union Station, the Amtrak train slowed down as it passed crews cleaning up a four-car Union Pacific freight train derailment. Just minutes later in Pico Rivera, Amtrak passengers recoiled at the sight of fire and police rescue crews removing the mangled body of a 56-year-old man who had been hit by a Metrolink commuter train.

The death of John Joseph Lopez, 56, was the fifth involving a Metrolink train this year, compared with one last year, said Metrolink spokesman Francisco Oaxaca. According to investigators, the gates at street level were down, lights were flashing and horns were sounding when Lopez wandered onto the tracks.

Scenes like that are all too familiar to veteran railroad engineers like Metrolink’s Dave Altman. Standing on a passenger platform at Union Station, watching the busy rush of commuters to his Antelope Valley-bound Metrolink train one day recently, Altman said he knew the anguish of the operator of the train involved in the Pico Rivera accident. Altman operated trains involved in three fatal accidents over the last dozen years. He said engineers have a certain feeling of helplessness when obstacles suddenly appear in front of them.

“It’s not a question of if, but when,” Altman said of the chances of a train hitting a pedestrian trespassing on a railroad right-of-way or smashing into a car stuck on the tracks. “You are mad, you are sad, you are scared. You just keep playing it over in your mind: ‘What could I have done?’ ”

According to rail officials, there is little Altman and other engineers can do, with trains rolling at speeds up to 90 mph.

“Even though an engineer can see that he is going to hit somebody and the brakes are fully applied, by the time that train has stopped he has traveled one-third to one-half mile,” said Richard H. Phelps, general manager of Amtrak’s Southern California operations.

Experts think California’s sheer size and population density have a lot to do with the high number of deaths. Railroad operators say accidents go up as the population continues to grow, more cars flood the streets and more trains crisscross the rails.

“More people, more trains, therefore more risk,” said Jack Wilson, an Amtrak operations chief.

Trains are the most fixed factor in the safety equation. Much the way air traffic controllers guide takeoffs and landings at airports, railroad staffers sit at computer consoles and guide trains, signals and track switches from operations centers miles away from the trains they are controlling.

To prevent contact between trains, pedestrians and motorists, rail officials have put most of their efforts into installing more physical barriers and safety devices, as well as into educating the public about the potential dangers.

Better Safety Features Sought at Rail Crossings

Railroad designers focus on placing tracks above or below streets, improving signals and upgrading railroad warning bells, lights and gates. But rail operators constantly plead for more money to improve safety features at grade crossings.

Metrolink, for example, has been asking for funding since 1993 to improve the Rosecrans Avenue intersection along the route to Orange County. A raised traffic median, by itself, would make it more difficult for motorists at the intersection to detour into oncoming traffic lanes or dodge around closed crossing gates.

Two of the largest rail projects in Los Angeles County are designed not only to speed freight in and out of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach but to make safety improvements and minimize contact between freight trains and the public.

The Alameda Corridor project is a $2.4-billion, 20-mile-long dedicated rail line that will connect the ports with rail yards in downtown Los Angeles. The nearly $1-billion Alameda Corridor East project includes plans for better signals and other safety improvements at 44 grade crossings in the San Gabriel Valley.

On the education front, experts face a number of challenges, most notably alerting the public about commuter trains that are quieter and faster than the freights that once lumbered through many neighborhoods. Trains now whisk by, sometimes at twice the speed limit allowed for cars.

The national group Operation Lifesaver is trying to reinvigorate the public safety improvements it began to make in the 1970s. The Southern California Grade Crossing Safety Team--representing rail operators, safety advocates and state and local officials--regularly conducts safety campaigns with police, schoolchildren, community groups and truck drivers.

The safety team says no one should willingly accept that increasing rail traffic means that accidents and deaths must increase too. But it can be a challenge to educate some groups, including immigrants from rural Asian regions unfamiliar with trains, said Operation Lifesaver’s Jacobsen. “We have a lot of people here who aren’t experienced about trains,” he said.

The number of railroad deaths in California rose 18% between 1990 and 1999, from 113 to 134, according to the PUC.

But in the area where rail service is expanding fastest--light rail--there has been a substantially greater increase in casualties.

Deaths, Injuries Up Over the Last Decade

Statewide, deaths and injuries resulting from accidents involving light-rail trains and motor vehicles rose from 24 in 1990 to 101 in 1999, the last full year reported by the PUC. In Los Angeles County, the MTA’s Blue Line experienced an increase from nine such casualties in 1990 to 39 in 1999.

On Saturday, an Amtrak train collided with a double-trailer truck near Encinitas. At least five train passengers were treated for minor injuries. It was not known why the truck had stopped on the tracks.

Earlier this month, a man and woman died in the north San Diego County community of Carlsbad when they were struck by an Amtrak train shortly after midnight. There were reports that they had been drinking.

In April, three people died in the Northern California community of Olivehurst when their vehicle went around lowered railroad crossing arms, investigators said.

Some think the problem could get worse before it gets better because of the rapid growth of rail in the state, particularly in Southern California. Completion of the Alameda Corridor project will result in a 160% increase in rail freight traffic through the San Gabriel Valley, according to planners. Work is underway on a light-rail extension from downtown Los Angeles to Pasadena. Plans for another light-rail line to East Los Angeles are well underway, with still another line planned for the Exposition Boulevard right of way from downtown L.A. to Culver City. Amtrak officials--buoyed by the success of rail service between San Luis Obispo and San Diego--hope to add more and even faster trains over the next two decades.

The growth has spawned excitement, fanned desire for more rail and surprised railroad men like Altman, the Metrolink engineer.

As he waited to take the controls of Metrolink’s train No. 215, due to depart Union Station for Lancaster at 5:03 p.m., he watched the parade of passengers flock to his train from buses and the subway.

Each day, he said, his trains are packed. And each day, Altman knows he will be taking those passengers through densely populated neighborhoods and across busy intersections.

“You have nightmares,” he said.

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Associated Press contributed to this story.