Railroad Vows to Aid Recovery

A week after runaway freight cars crashed into a Commerce neighborhood, demolishing several homes and scattering tons of lumber and debris, Union Pacific Railroad officials told 300 residents Thursday night that they would directly handle all claims for losses from the accident.

“Union Pacific apologizes and takes full responsibility for what happened last Friday,” said Jeff Verhaal, the railroad’s Western regional vice president. “We’re committed to helping every person recover and get back to the same life they had before.”

Officials said the railroad would pay all of the city’s costs related to the accident and would set up an office to receive damage claims from residents. Union Pacific is setting up accounts at banks to distribute emergency cash advances to residents, railroad claims representative Gil Torres said.

Rail officials also stood by their decision to route the runaway train through the Commerce neighborhood, saying that all other options could have resulted in a tragedy.

Asked why residents and police weren’t warned of the impending derailment, railroad operations chief Ted Lewis gave a response that drew gasps.

“We thought we had a system to notify in case we had an emergency, but we didn’t,” he said. “It’s clear based on what happened in this case.”

Councilman Ray Cisneros said he was troubled by that answer. “The fact that there was no advance warning seems to me a blatant disregard for the people of Commerce,” he said. The city, he said to applause, “was made a sacrificial lamb.”

The meeting, held at the Commerce Civic Center, was the first between residents and rail officials. Residents listened in silence as officials outlined the events of that day.

“I’m here to see what they have to say and to see how they can play with human life like this,” said Pedro Zambrano, 41, who hasn’t been allowed to return to his apartment since the crash. “Ever since that day, I’ve been feeling nervous.”

According to federal investigators, the accident was caused by a series of errors and miscommunications, which led to a string of 31 cars rolling free from a Union Pacific depot in Montclair last Friday.

The cars, unanchored by brakes or a locomotive, rolled out of control for 28 miles, reaching speeds of up to 86 mph before some of them careened off the tracks, sending train axles flying into yards and spilling lumber into living rooms.

Eleven of the cars derailed a little before noon, just short of a switching yard that Union Pacific officials said they had targeted as a derailment site. No one was killed or seriously injured.

On Wednesday, officials from the National Transportation Safety Board released preliminary findings of their investigation. According to the report, a series of compounding errors and communications failures between Union Pacific dispatchers and employees left railroad workers with no choice but to direct the runaway cars across a switch at more than three times the speed at which freight trains usually roll through the City of Commerce.

Union Pacific officials told residents Thursday that they would stop switching trains in Montclair until a better system is in place.

But promises of financial compensation and new emergency measures left some dissatisfied.

“They can say, ‘Here’s a thousand dollars to fix a broken wall or a broken gate,’ but how can they fix our broken dreams?” said Isela Bonada, whose home is now uninhabitable.

In neighboring Montebello, officials renewed demands Thursday that a massive trench be dug so rail lines could be placed below ground level. The demand was aimed at the Alameda Corridor East Construction Authority, the agency in charge of a 35-mile railway improvement project between East Los Angeles and Pomona.

“If there is any good that can come from this tragedy, I hope it will serve as a wake-up call to regional and federal transportation officials so that they will understand the critical need for funding for greater safety measures,” said Montebello Mayor Kathy Salazar.

But the authority has said that placing the rails below ground level would be too costly, and that when a plan to lower the tracks halfway was suggested, the Montebello City Council voted against it.

“We still don’t feel there is sufficient money to do that kind of a project,” said Rick Richmond, chief executive of the authority.

Now, he said, it’s even less likely that such a project could be undertaken since the Alameda East Corridor project gets about 40% of its funding from the state, which faces a huge budget shortfall.

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Times staff writer Monte Morin contributed to this report.