Widow Files Suit Against Metrolink

The widow of the sheriff’s deputy who died in a fiery Metrolink chain-reaction crash near Glendale earlier this year filed a lawsuit Monday against the commuter rail agency, alleging that her husband’s train was unsafe because its locomotive was in the rear.

James Tutino was riding in a train that lacked “adequate safeguards” because it was being pushed rather than pulled by a locomotive, according to the lawsuit filed by his widow, Rita Kay Tutino.

“This tragedy occurred because the train was in push-mode,” said Tutino’s lawyer, Jerome Ringler, who is representing about a dozen other plaintiffs over the derailment that killed 11 passengers and injured about 180 others.

The lawsuit, the first to be filed since the Jan. 26 crash, will likely add to the controversy over the widespread practice of using locomotives to push passenger trains.

Some rail safety experts say trains pulled by a locomotive, rather than pushed, are safer because the locomotive provides added protection for passengers in a head-on collision. They also say that pushed trains are more likely to derail because the cab car in front, lighter than a locomotive, can be wrenched from the tracks more easily. Others say the research is not conclusive and that having a locomotive in front at all times would either be too costly or not feasible.

Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell declined to comment on the lawsuit, which was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. So far, about 60 claims -- legal precursors to a lawsuit -- have been filed against the agency over the crash, which happened when a southbound Metrolink train hit an SUV parked on the tracks and derailed, hitting an idle freight train, then crashed into a northbound Metrolink train.

The SUV’s driver, Juan Manuel Alvarez, now faces murder charges.

About a month after the crash, Metrolink began prohibiting passengers from sitting in the front portion of the first cabin, behind the engineer at the mezzanine level, when the train is being pushed, but the agency has no plans to change its practice of pushing trains unless compelled by federal authorities, Tyrrell said.